What is the Iliggocene?

It always starts with art. The art term is created by combining the Greek ίλιγγος - dizziness, vertigo, and -cene, a word-forming element in geology to indicate more recent periods, derived from the Latinized form of Greek kainos "new," cognate with Latin recens (https://www.etymonline.com/). With it, we aim to describe the recent period often perceived through the prism of polycrisis, disruption and disarray and connected to the feelings of dizziness, disorientation and confusion. We transcribe ίλιγγος literally, with its double g and not imitatively in the way it is pronounced, which would require “ng”. We do so in order to avoid any association with ilinx, Roger Caillois’ term for a specific aspect of his game theory. The way we regard ίλιγγος does not bear much relation to games or gamification.

But why another -cene? Especially as we were just recently introduced to a new term of the Anthropocene? A -cene implies that our planet and its physicality are involved. On the planetary scale of the Iliggocene, we can be directed to recent studies that show that the planetary axis is shifting through climate change, and through that, our planet spinning faster, and days on our earth are getting shorter (1). Whereas the term Anthropocene highlights how the actions of humankind change the condition on the planet, the Iliggocene focuses on how it feels to be a living being in such a radically changing environment and how these changes affect us as beings able to detect gravity. In this way, the perspective differs. Moreover, the notion of the Iliggocene aims to include a sense of all living beings. Highlighting our relation to gravity as our common denominator brings the vestibular sense to the fore. Most living beings, not just humans, have a sensory organ to feel gravity, from mammals to birds, fish, microorganisms and plants.

Our specific human sense of gravity and balance is afforded by our vestibular system, an extraordinary sensory organ that allows us to perceive dizziness, and that is still under-researched. “To the extent to which dizziness is perceptual, it is meta-perceptual, superordinate to the sensory modalities whose discordance it registers. This places it in a unique experiential category: an indicator of the cross-modal coherence referenced to the body. We cannot easily construe it on the model of simple sensations, for its perceptual aspect is sui generis. (2) [...] dizziness presents complex cross-modal perceptual, motor, and emotional aspects whose interdependence is not easy to disentangle, for their coincidence here is at least in part unique.[...] it is the connective, hodological aspects of the underlying organisation that are plausibly critical here [...]”

Living beings experience dizziness as a situation and condition troubling their relation to their social, physical, and digital surroundings and the way they relate to them, be it on a physical, social, cognitive, emotional, environmental, or metaphorical scale. As such, dizziness is not only a theoretical or curatorial concept; its physicality and manifestations are germane and impact our agency and imagination. The Iliggocene proposal regards dizziness as at the core of the lived experience of (loss of) relations, including time and space. With this artistic, curatorial and research project, we aim to open a door to a different understanding of the global situation and our conditio humana, but also to restore critical thinking and openness to complexity and ambiguity from which to build new modes of collaboration to mitigate living in a world in turmoil. To do so, we believe it is significant to start with updating our epistemologies, skills, and vocabularies and adapt them to the changed conditions of the Iliggocene. Based on the sensory experience and cognition of dizziness, Iliggocene – The Age of Dizziness discusses theoretically and artistically that the contemporary situation of living on this planet is dizzying. From us humans, it may demand new languages and new ways of understanding and sharing rooted in and derived from the lived experience of groundlessness.