Serra Bilgincan
Reptilia Cultivatus
2024
(Un)functional Sculpture, vest, helmet and assembling manual
Stainless steel, steel rope, polyester sling cloth tow rope, plaster, plastic, digital print
160 x 280 cm
Aslı Alpar's critique on the work:
Just as aerating the soil is essential for cultivating ideal grapes—a factor that influences both productivity and the taste of wine—walking among the vines compacts the soil, hindering its ability to breathe. Based on this knowledge that she gathered from vineyard workers, the artist designed an object that tills the soil as one walks, with the aim of creating a balancing force and turning harm into productivity. Functioning as an extension of the body, the design resembles a cyborg*. By synthesizing the current state of the agricultural revolution, mechanization, and standardized mass production methods with an ecological and cognitive
framework, the artist offers an alternative proposition for the transition of creativity from muscle power to brainpower. Inspired by cultivators used in the vineyard, the artist considers walking with it attached to one’s back as an active gesture. When not in use by the artist, this design transforms into a contemporary object for its users with an explanation resembling an IKEA instruction manual.
*A term used to describe beings that are a mix of biological and artificial human and robotic elements.
T. Melis Golar
Reptillia Cultivatus is a (un)functional sculpture that operates as both a speculative object and a working agricultural tool. Inspired by vineyard cultivators, it addresses the often overlooked damage caused by walking between grapevines, where compacted soil loses its breath and vitality. The object tills the soil as one walks, turning harm into productivity and creating a balancing force between disruption and restoration. Through its form and utility, the piece invites reflection on the complex, often contradictory relationship between humans and the land.
In performance, the prehistoric-inspired tool—resembling a vertebral spine—is worn and pulled by a performer dressed in a playful custom vest and headpiece, resembling a cyborg. The performance blurs the lines between nature and technology, evoking themes of civilization, labor, property ownership, and ecological exploitation. The piece gestures toward the agricultural revolution, industrialization, and ecological collapse, while also imagining new ways of engaging with land through embodied, intentional gestures.
Reptillia Cultivatus challenges dominant systems of knowledge by interrogating the notion of efficiency, long celebrated as a marker of civilization and progress. It questions whether the efficiency gained through the agricultural revolution was always beneficial, whether it was truly “productive” for the societies it transformed. And in the context of the post industrial era, it asks whether we can still call something productive when it comes at the cost of irreversible ecological harm.
The work opens up these questions by appearing to till the soil, yet in doing so, placing the burden of labor, of progress, on the body that carries it. Although the object is conceived through intellectual labor, it reverses this trajectory by demanding intense physical effort from the person who activates it. It asks what might emerge if we look again, differently at the soil, at tradition, at history, at the body. What happens when we accept the conveniences we’re offered? Or when we refuse the obligations we’re expected to carry?
Playing between fiction and function, the meditative and ritualistic performance challenges the audience to reconsider the narratives of progress and the ethical implications of our interactions with the land. When not in use, the sculpture becomes a contemporary object with instructions similar to those for assembling IKEA furniture.