too cool to burn

dennis dizon

 

too cool to burn is a long-term research project that reimagines “climate sensitivity”—a climate science equation that measures how much the earth will warm based on increasing greenhouse gas emissions; poetically, climate sensitivity is a measure of uncertainty. The ongoing project activates dissonance as a tactic, reframing climate as a medium for negotiating relationality between humans, with the nonhuman, to align interspecies behaviours and communication.

As a component for too cool to burn, the research strand for La Escocesa proposes to find intersections between the “impersonal intimacies” of queer relationality and ecological thinking through resin-tapping of pine trees and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), following methodological research on “the practice of cruising as an unexpected model for a new ecological ethic”¹.

Referred to as “tapping therapy” or psychological acupressure, EFT is an alternative treatment for physical pain and emotional distress. In parallel, the research proposes to explore the process of pine resin-tapping in parts of the Mediterranean, including the Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) forests in the Castilla y León region, and the resin-based economies in the area. In Spain, renewed interest in ​resin-tapping, or “bleeding,” could offer a solution to the country’s rural exodus; according to Blanca Rodríguez-Chaves, an environmental policy expert from the Autonomous University of Madrid, resin could also be an eco-alternative to products made with petroleum, such as plastic².

Despite its assumed economic repair, the research observes an ecological paradox: when damaged, pine trees bleed an antibacterial resin, which prevents them from getting infected (the sap can also be used as a natural antiseptic for humans). Pine resin, however, is also highly flammable, which—for example—amplified the devastation of climate change-induced wildfires on the Greek island of Evia in 2021³.

Through this research strand, too cool to burn continues to extract and converge the aesthetics and politics of techno-science with the ecological. The research project proposes a deeper immersion in intentions and risks, uncertainties and pleasures, creating other means of recognising, expressing and (dis)embodying sensitivities—all while under pressure—in varying scales of crises.

 

1) Sarah Ensor, “Queer Fallout: Samuel R. Delany and the Ecology of Cruising” Environmental Humanities 9, no. 1 (May 2017: 149).
2) Susana Girón, “Spain's untapped 'liquid gold'” BBC, October 15, 2021.
3) Joanna Kakissis, “Climate Change Destroyed A Way Of Life On The Once-Idyllic Greek Island Of Evia” NPR, September 11, 2021.

 

about the artist

They are a research-based artist and writer. Their practice interrogates the intersections of technology and ecology—inclusive of the social, mental and environmental—applying queer and decolonial practices to their poetics, urgencies and speculative futures.

They have contributed to How To Not Build A Nation (2021-2022) for Nation Narration Narcosis at Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin), Thinking Together with “Under the Rustle of Trees, We Listened to the Hum of Machines” at MaerzMusik 2022 (Berlin), and the Weather Engines Symposium with “Weather Stress Index” at Onassis Stegi (Athens) for The Forest Curriculum. In 2021, Dennis participated in and yet the air was still stirring, a group exhibition at Circulo de Bellas Artes (Madrid) for La Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo’s Young Curators Residency Programme.

Grants, fellowships and residencies include the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (New York, 2019), Furtherfield (London, 2020), Beyond Matter at Tallinna Kunstihoone (Tallinn, 2020), and The School of Infinite Rehearsals IV: Everything Equally Evolved with Onassis AiR (Athens, 2021). Dennis received an honorary mention from Arts at CERN’s Collide International Residency Award in support of their ongoing research on climate sensitivity.

Dennis holds a Master of Research degree in Advanced Practices (Curatorial / Knowledge) from Goldsmiths, University of London.