Iron-ic polytics
A desire to collaborate with the Outside, with the exogenic.
* Knots on phytological fabulation, Rubus-mania, and phytograms.
>> Axeddir ⴰⵛⴷⴷⵉⵔ in Amazigh refers to Rubus Plicatus but also Rubus genus in general…
>> Encromancy; from Ink, anything that serves to dye, also to die as the process of ink making involves oxidation, a loss of electrons, in which iron reacts with water and oxygen to form hydrated iron oxide. Somehow it’s about the un-refinement of Iron, the dispurification of a metal. Oxidation may refer to aging, aging as a chemical trajectory toward a temporal chaos, physical unseparation, toward the compost (if not a compost society).
The tannin that joins this “compustion” is exhumed from rubus leaves by an agitated body of water due to the exothermic agent.
What if this becoming-inertia entity goes down on a surface of the paper, obeying a telluric political economy, to form an opaque object, a phytogramme. Is Tifinagh ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ then a movement toward the chthonic realm, the place of regeneration, implosion, and dreams?
>>Combustion is that common space, the AGRAW ⴰⴳⵔⴰⵡ, the field of guerillas, exhumation, activism, and waging on the oppressive regimes, a total TAGRAWLA ⵜⴰⴳⵔⴰⵡⵍⴰ.
Iron Polytics is a material research that interrogates iron’s material agency and its entanglement with Western industrial heritage. The project explores iron’s dual role as both a life-sustaining element and a harbinger of decay, tracing its chemical, biological, and cultural trajectories. Through processes like oxidation, ferroptosis (iron-dependent cell death), and fermentation, iron emerges as a mediator between creation and dissolution, binding ecological cycles, colonial histories, and industrial legacies. It examines how iron’s reactivity shapes artifacts, from cellulose-degrading inks to phytogrammes (botanical imprints), while invoking Amazigh cosmologies to reframe metallurgy as a site of guerrilla resistance. Bridging exogenic collaboration, with pathogens, plants, and extraterrestrial origins, the project critiques necrocratic systems that prioritize preservation over regeneration. By interweaving ferrous metallurgy, teratological botany, and speculative narratives, Iron Polytics envisions a compost society where decay becomes a radical, telluric politics of renewal.
