Corpus Politicum:
 A Lively Vessel

Duration: 3 hours

Performance: Andreas Engman / Recovery Drink: Andreas Engman / Sound: Andreas Engman / Costume: Annie Johansson / Textile Sculpture: Annie Johansson & Andreas Engman / Scenography: Andreas Engman, Petter Pettersson & Lo Pettersson-Lundgren / Light Design: Lo Pettersson-Lundgren & Andreas Engman / Photography: Petter Pettersson





In this final act of three on the subject lacto-fermentation, I turn my gaze more towards the body than in previous installments. Performative and metaphorical aspects of lactic acid production meet in Corpus Politicum, The Body Politic; a direction in political philosophy where the body is used as a metaphor for the sovereign nation-state or other institutions in society, (see social organism and social body). Further examples of this are when an organisation such as the UN refers to its various decision-making bodies, in relation to nations one speaks of heads of state and in ancient times political crises were often equated with a biological disease. The 17th century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in his book Leviathan or The Matter, Form and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil (1651) describes parts of the state/body as follows; ‘sovereignty is the soul, and magistrates are the body’s the joints, reward and punishment, its nerves. Money is the blood providing nutrients from the plenty of nature.’
 
The Body Politic has long been one of the most widely used metaphors for states and institutions in political discourse. Although it is also commonly used today many people problematise its historical and contemporary effects on how we view our environment and who and what populates it. Historically, a form of immunological discourse has shaped our view of society and who is described as pathogenic or apatogenic in the state-body relation, who or what is dangerous and who or what is beneficial. A form of antiseptic relationship to what is classed as foreign under prevailing norms. Something that feels more relevant than ever in today's protectionist society. In her book, The Microbial State - Global Thriving and the Body Politic, Professor of Political Theory Stefanie R. Fishel argues that climate change, neoliberalism, mass migration and other aspects of the late Anthropocene have increasingly highlighted the limitations of this metaphor. Just as the human body is not whole and separate from other bodies but is made up of microbes, bacteria, water and radioactive isotopes - she argues that the body politic of the state exists in a dense entanglement with other communities and forms of life. Refraiming the concept of the body politic to accomodate greater levels of complexity, Fishel suggests, will result in new configurations for the political and social organisation necessary to build a world in which the planet’s inhabitants do not merely live but actively thrive.

Research in microbiology is problematising the traditional idea of the body as clearly defined and is complicating what it means to be human. This is because we are largely made up of bacteria, both beneficial and pathogenic. In terms of our bodily composition, non-human DNA outnumbers human DNA. The human body's largest population of microorganisms is found in the gut and is called the gut microbiota, where trillions of microorganisms coexist and its microbiome can contain 1000 times more “non-human” genes than human. This challenges the idea of humans as sovereign beings and proposes them rather as a travelling assemblage of microorganisms, a ‘lively vessel’, in constant flux through our bodily porous and leaky boundaries with our bacterial environment.

In the space at Lilith Performance Studio there is a fridge from which the recovery drink ‘The Lively Vessel’ is served from red sports bottles. The drink consists of kombucha, beetroot juice and red grapefruit juice and thus contains millions of lively lactic acid bacteria. Through the constant production of lactic acid the drink and the body in the room are in an ongoing, simultaneous fermentation process. As a visitor, you are welcome to bring a sports bottle and allow yourself to be recuperated by embodying the lively vessel and welcoming microbial coexistence. In Corpus Politicum: A Lively Vessel, I ask how we can metaphorically look at fermentation in general and lactic acid in particular wrapped up in this state-body relationship?