I am unhappy with the
The conclusive part is not completed and more work is needed. I need clarity if I should add a literature study. I will also add my Glossary of Terms(currently a separate blog entry on this site ) definitions for words used in the writing. I must decide if I use footnotes instead of the Glossary of Terms. I also think my images should be a specific size, and using the Word application, I need to clarify dimensions. Another thought is to add images as a separate attachment to the writing and place smaller images in the writing part. I am more convinced that most of my work ideas originate from my own experience and the place where I am – physically and emotionally.
I should add my reading/understanding/application about Karen Barad’s Agential Realism, which also focuses on multispecies intra-action and feminism. I became more aware of how, in my work, new possibilities opened up ‘telling’ me about entanglements between me and the non-human. I came upon the work by Patricia Piccini, an artist whom both Barad and Haraway found inspiring to their concerns and thoughts.
Eben Kirksey in his article Multi Species Intra Action ( Antennae Issue 32) suggests that “Barad offers conceptual resources for thinking about how other kinds of critters constitute each other with their own practices of classification, recognition, and differentiation. He refers to her work She suggests: “It is through specific intra-actions that a differential sense of being is enacted in the ongoing ebb and flow of agency” (2003: 817). Rather than assume that we humans are exceptional in our ability to recognize other kinds of critters, we can explore how species emerge through intra-actions with companions ” (cf. Haraway 2003). (
Karen Barad, ‘Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding
of how matter comes to matter,’ in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture
and Society, vol. 28, no. 3, 2003, p. 829
I can identify that Karen Barad considers her work as entirely feminist and values how she places herself within her work as a recognition of the entangled processes of epistemology and how the world comes to be. This states how she is in and of the world – she focuses on a relational perspective – entities intra-act. Karen Barad also made me consider aesthetics in my work – do or can my explorations lead to ways to engage multispecies ideas (views) in art? I am more aware that my art has become an inclusion of human, fungal, animal, weed, virus and more – do I see a move away from representationalism, which is human-centric, according to Barad, a move to a performative or installation art? Barad compares the attempt of artists to work in a representational way as impossible to deal with the infinite and transcendent. ( Barad, 2012a; 16-17). I do like to think that these ideas became a way to disturb anthropocentric systems within art. It reminds me of Bennets’ use of ‘vibrant matter’, and that we as humans are both in and of nature. This intermingling becomes harder to ignore, as Bennet suggests that nature is mixed up with self and society and this lead to a cognitive dissonance. (Bennet: 140) I would not like to think that my work around mushrooms, feathers, and nests will tie to ideas around hierarchies of value and class. I would rather deal with: ‘Is it art?’ I prefer to think my work considers matter – material, a critical engagement. I also feel it necessary to state that this is a struggle and an unfamiliar place to find myself. How do I deal with the science part, the quantum physics, which I grasp only a tiny amount of, in this making with the other? It is not easy and makes me feel vulnerable. I have decided to accept this complexity and…I contemplated if this is why my works can be seen as different conceptual sites where I try to find ways to talk and share my work about otherness and the need to express that we should re-connect or look at alternative ways of seeing/being – inspired by the writings of Barad, Haraway……
Work done by artists I want to consider:
Tania Kovats https://www.interaliamag.org/interviews/tania-kovats/
and Patrica Piccinini (essay she wrote and shares on her website: https://www.patriciapiccinini.net/a-essay.php?id=112)
In terms of my making: nests and birds. I am considering my animalness and vulnerabilities. On the other side, it makes me think about human arrogance. It is in the experience of making is where the thinking happens and hopefully develops as further works. When I weave a nest, I often manipulate my materials by attempting to keep the shape – it makes me think of control and how, as humans, we operate within nature using these mechanisms.
About place:
A great swathe of terms has evolved to define the places inhabited by organisms
including Homo sapiens. Concepts of place, biome, niche, habitat, ecosystem,
environment, landscape, territory, Country, Umwelt, Lebensraum, terroir, biosphere and
others span intertwining aspects of literal and allegorical place. Some define
geographical or cartographical space or dynamic systems of interactions, while others
focus on human contexts and themes including identity, belonging and heritage
Bennet, Vibrant Matter
Suggestedd steps:
Clear sense:two bits : Start with a title – giving it rootedness title. should trigger some questions
Share the artists – my own work and the theories
Consider themes :
Next Wed. my ownership – decided to how I what to write about – its for me to decide. This is now – choose the artists, the theorist
Input – outcomes – are they there?
Suggests – negative space – fragility – its is valid How and why. – the connections in the process of their making.
use the subheadings
start a new word document
Brief notes – annotated essay.
Draft feedback add my notes.
be specific – Early nov 8 Next date