Comparative Guts

Search
Close this search box.

Comparative
Guts

Kotsanas‘ hölzerne Reproduktion des Stomachion, eine moderne Reproduktion von Archimedes‘ Stomachion — Das Spiel besteht aus einer quadratischen Platte aus hellem Holz und 14 Holzteilen. Dabei handelt es sich um geometrische Formen, meist Dreiecke. Die flachen Holzteile sind auf der Platte so aneinandergelegt, dass sie ein Quadrat bilden. Je sieben Formen sind wie bei einem Puzzle so zusammengefügt, dass sie zwei waagrechte Rechtecke ergeben. Gleichzeitig ergeben jeweils sieben Formen zwei gleichschenklige Dreiecke, deren lange Seiten eine Diagonale von links unten nach rechts oben in dem Quadrat bilden. Die 14 Holzteile umfassen 11 Dreiecke, 2 Vierecke und ein Fünfeck. Die Dreiecke haben verschiedene Formen, bis auf zwei, die gleich in Form und Fläche sind. Die Vierecke und das Fünfeck haben unterschiedlich lange Seiten. Ein Viereck erinnert an die Form eines Papierdrachens, das Fünfeck an die Giebelseite eines Hauses. Alle Teile bestehen aus gemasertem hellem Holz. Gelegentlich reicht die Maserung in angrenzende Bereiche der geometrischen Formen hinein. —— Kotsanas' wooden reproduction of the Stomachion, a modern reproduction of Archimedes' Stomachion — The game consists of a square board made of light-coloured wood and 14 wooden pieces. These pieces are geometric shapes, mostly triangles. The flat wooden pieces are placed together on the board so that they form a square. Seven shapes are placed together, like in a puzzle, so that they form two horizontal rectangles. At the same time, seven shapes each make two isosceles triangles. The long sides of these triangles form a diagonal line from the bottom left to the top right of the square. The 14 wooden pieces comprise of 11 triangles, 2 squares and a pentagon. The triangles have different shapes, except for two that are the same in shape and area. The quadrilaterals and the pentagon have sides of different lengths. One square is reminiscent of the shape of a paper kite. The pentagon is reminiscent of the gable end of a house. All parts are made of light-coloured wood with a grained texture. Occasionally, the grain extends into adjacent areas of the geometric shapes.

Exploring the Inside of the Body
through Time and Space

This is a comparative exhibition about the human body, and in particular about one body part, the ‘guts’. For these purposes, ‘guts’ refers to everything found inside the lower torso, the organs and parts traditionally linked to nutrition and digestion, but also endowed with emotional, ethical, and metaphysical significance, depending on the representation and narrative.

By offering access to culturally, socially, historically, and sensorially different experiential contexts, Comparative Guts allows the visitor a glimpse into the variety and richness of embodied self-definition, human imagination about our (as well as animal) bodies’ physiology and functioning, our embodied exchange with the external world, and the religious significance of the way we are ‘made’ as living creatures. This dive into difference is simultaneously an enlightening illustration of what is common and shared among living beings.

The ‘guts’ are treated here in as neutral and universal a fashion as possible: not necessarily as functional parts of an organism or as a medical item, but as realities experienced in various ways. The most basic distinction is the sensed, volumetric one: solids for the fleshy organs (such as those referred to in English as the liver and the stomach), coils for the intestines and other parts endowed with complexity, folds, and fluidity, and wholes for the guts understood as part of a coherent whole, be it continuous or assembled.