2022-2025

Commissioned by Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, and House of Humor, Gabrovo, Bulgaria.

Presented at Hard Return (2023), Neuberger Museum of Art, curated by SUNY Purchase professors Kate Gilmore and Jonah Westerman, and at Sensitivity Training (2022), House of Humor, Gabrovo, Bulgaria, curated by Olav Westfalen.

Recent interest in human habitation of other planets raises questions not only about the viability of extraterrestrial agriculture, but also about what exactly humans require to survive, maintain civilization, culture, and an “adequate” quality of life. The work asks us to envision variable futures and how actions in the present make some versions more possible than others.

In May 2021 Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, retweeted my work “Darth Vader Tries to Clean the Black Sea with a Brita Filter” (2000). He wrote “Elon” on Darth Vader’s helmet, “his twitter feed” on the Brita filter pitcher and “memes” on the waves, implying that his twitter feed purifies the “Sea of Memes”. (By 2025, his own self-fulfilling prophecy of his role as a contemporary Darth Vader, seems to be fully realized.) Cosmic Cucumber Carousel is my response. It is a multi-disciplinary project, debating the future of space travel and human relationships in light of all the non-human factors that make life possible.

Musk boasts that the SpaceX Mars mission will establish a colony of one million people on Mars by the year 2050. Cosmic Cucumber Carousel is following developments with a proposal to grow cucumbers on Mars to help feed the population. The piece takes the form of an opera in its expanded sense of work, labor, care, and trouble.

I collaborated with the composer and vocalist Erin Gee to create a five-day opera that folds a year’s work with a large team of experts: Nela Rachevitz, Galina Ivanova, Anna Balanska as gardeners in Bulgaria; the soil biogeochemist Professor Johannes Lehman and the astro-ecologist Morgan Irons at the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University; and the plant scientist Margaret Ball at the Soil Factory in Ithaca, New York.

A cycle of videos featured Gee and me as cantors, speculating on the viability of life on this and other planets.

Live singers also performed a one-minute composition by Erin Gee, on the hour, wearing garments designed by me and the fashion designer Kiwi Nguyen. Scientists, fortune tellers and gardeners made disparate predictions against a backdrop of fresco panels and pickled cucumbers, which were experimentally grown in enriched Mars Regolith Simulant*. Custom-made glass pickling jars were created in collaboration with Adam Kennedy at the Chemistry Department Glass Shop, University of Texas at Austin.

A long curtain creates a visual and chronological log of the project in fabric photographs with embroidered titles and captions describing the actions, plus embroidered blocks of musical scores, and other connecting links. Embroiderers continued to work on the curtain during the five-day opera, and enthusiastic visitors were welcome to join in.

Materials & Actions: Three cucumber gardens established and cultivated in Bulgaria and New York State; cucumbers successfully grown in Mars Regolith Simulant in Ithaca, New York, and pickled cucumbers in custom-made glass jars; frescoes on panels; custom made garments; embroidered curtain 9 x 36ft.

Musical composition and video performance with vocalist and composer Erin Gee;

live vocal performances by students from SUNY Purchase, New York

Garden locations: House of Humor, Gabrovo, Bulgaria; Nyack, New York; School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; The Soil Factory, Ithaca, New York

*PLANT GROWTH EXPERIMENT

May 26 2022 - February 26, 2023

Cucumber Seeds Sown in Amended Mars Regolith Simulant Produce Fruits

Authors: Margaret Ball, Morgan Irons, Daniel Bozhkov

Methods

For this experiment we had to create a growing medium using Earth minerals that resemble Mars rock. We amended and pre-worked Mars Global High-Fidelity Martian Dirt Simulant (MGS-1) before planting to begin biogeochemical soil formation processes. We wetted the MGS-1 with distilled water and allowed the mixture to air dry at room temperature for 48 hours. On May 26, 2022 we tilled the mixture using a hand spade and added coconut coir (bio365, Ithaca, NY), Great White Premium Mychorrizae innoculant (Plant Revolution Inc, Santa Ana, CA) containing endo and ecto mychorrizae, beneficial bacteria and Trichoderma, and additional water.

Results

The fourth planting succeeded in producing seven viable plants with 29 cucumber fruits that grew as long as 11cm. Plants that received a higher rate of fertigation grew taller than plants in the control group, and produced more and larger fruits.