4.14 ^E
Digestible spaces
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"Do we know the moral effects of foods ? Is there a philosophy of nutrition ?" This question of the link between the mind and food was posed by Friedrich Nietzsche. Today we know of many cerebral structures, such as the hypothalamus and the limbic center, that constitute a link between food intake and behavior - sexual and learning behavior, for example. We are also aware of the mood-altering effects of some substances. Serotonin, for example, participates in adapted social behavior, or, its absence causes aggression. It has therefore become difficult to conceive of art that exists only externally to the body, producing solely visual or auditory forms that must be decoded semantically. The forms that we seek accept the participation of the body in their mediation, by acting in the intestines, on the neurons, on the neurotransmitters, by chemically stimulating desire and mood. Modern biology draws a distinction between corporeal and extracorporeal space. The first is the communication space managed by neurons and hormones, inter alia. The second is the space outside the body, that which informs us via the senses. Today, an object can no longer be apprehended if its effects in either of these spaces are overlooked. Thus, the meaning of an object exists only in this "... interaction de facteurs internes liés à des variations humorales et au métabolisme cellulaire ( l'espace corporel ), et de facteurs extérieurs incitatifs ( l'espace extracorporel )..." [ "... interaction of internal factors related to mood variations and cell metabolism ( the corporeal space ) and incitant external factors ( the extracorporeal space )"] as the neurobiologist Jean-Didier Vincent explains. Digestible Spaces is an architecture that acts both in corporeal and extracorporeal space. By defining space in a physiological manner as a certain quantity of air and light, we seek to establish an equilibrium between the information that we emit outside the body and that emitted on the inside, within the body. Digestible Spaces makes it possible to reduce the quality of extracorporeal space while increasing the quality of corporeal space. For instance, the depletion of exterior light, which suppresses the synthesis of vitamin D by ultraviolet radiation on the skin, is compensated by taking vitamin D. Oxygen depletion of the air is offset by a digestive influx of erythropoietin, a peptide hormone that increases muscular oxygenation by elevating the number of red cells in the blood.

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Digestible spaces
Installation
- Mae, Chavannes-près-Renens, Switzerland, June - December 2001
- Bienal da Utopia, Cascais, Portugal, July 2001
- Tirana Bienal I, Tirana, Albania, fall 2001
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Décosterd & Rahm, associés