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Curating Ephemera

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...Harvey’s posed alternative to capture the heritage of decay seems a necessary theoretical step towards finding practical solutions to the human desire to remember our past as we progress. One quote from his lecture in particular has lingered with me: he cited DeSilvey’s 2017 call to “curated decay, care without conservation.” It is with this perspective on what it could look like to embrace the temporality of all things, to be not at odds with nature, but in-line with its inherent workings and therefore a naturally human phenomena, that I wish to introduce the philosophical representation of decay within the art museum. One can quite easily make the connection between the artist and their desire to “conserve” via creative documentation of life. I argue that painting as a practice has always been the kind of radically ephemera- embracing heritage practice that Harvey proposes. I wish to explore the questions: how might we use philosophies of painting, in documenting decay and ephemera, as a lens to conservation and heritage work within the material realities of the capitalocene? And, to what effect would this pedagogical shift in an approach to conservation and heritage work change the ways in which we experience the past?

 

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From smart skin to second skin: thresholding the world of the body and the body of the world

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In this essay, I approach the questions that frame the evolution of synthetic smart skins via a humanities approach to interface theory.  In doing so, I wish to highlight how the production of space through such an interface speaks to the relevance of a phenomenological approach to interface theory, and to put this framework in discussion with theories of body hybridity and sensory experience. Ultimately, of smart skin’s potential I ask: which elements of organic human skin are being prioritised or neglected by the designers of these stretchable electronics, and how might the intentional or unintentional capacities and effects of such a “skin” impact the experiencing of and interfacing with the urban environment?

I ground my approach in the intersection of various interface theorists work; I was lead to Hansen’s Bodies in Code, which has been highly informative for my unpacking of the embodied properties of smart skin, via de Souza e  Silva and Frith’s “Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces.” They retrace Simmel’s idea of “the blasé attitude” as a metaphorical “organ” (27) that allowed the urbanite to turn inwards in the face of over-stimulation. They draw the parallel with Hansen’s foundational premise that “human skin was the original medium, or  in [de Souza e Silva and Frith’s] terms, the original interface,”. In order to understand the mobile interfaces of today’s public spaces, these authors tune themselves to the embodiment of public spaces through the interface, a reading of interface that roots the body in place, via literal and metaphorical organs. Thus, it is critical to explore the role of skin, the body’s threshold, in phenomenologically interfacing with the urban. i propose this as a transformative approach to interface read as a space of relations, as Drucker calls for in her “Humanities Approaches to Interface Theory.” I’ve selected her proposed theoretical framework—in which subjectivity is constructed by the interface’s inherently spatial relations—to make sense of, and question, the priorities shaping the development of today’s smart skins.  Finally, I refocus this exploration of the potentials of smart skins by returning to Kant’s essential questions, viewed through a de-colonial framework for approaching the subject that lends great insight into phenomenological data in the new domain of smart cities.

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Larman's 'Bone Chair' as Reflection of Anthropocene Aesthetic Demand

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...In 2014, Laarman was named one of 15 designers in the Netherlands that comprised the new Dutch design avant-garde, as dictated by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. By means of a survey of the history of “Dutch design” and its previous iterations of “avant-garde”—within the method of national design histories as outlined by John Walker—this essay questions the sustainability of technical innovations in additive manufacturing, exemplified by Laarman Labs. Further surveying of Laarman’s peers in the Stedelijk Museum’s exhibit and accompanying text by Merel Bem, “How We Work: The Dutch Design Avant-Garde,” reveals a widespread emphasis in this contemporary avant-garde on a return to nature, recycling/upcycling, and consciousness of waste to complement technological innovation. Careful study on discussion of Laarman’s work in contrast with the mission of his peers’ raises questions concerning what the nation behind the Dutch design avant-garde demands of its most celebrated creators. This essay follows two lines of inquiry: first, if the contemporary Dutch design “avant-garde” proposes “high quality and sustainability as a solution to mass production and overproduction,” as put forward by Stedelijk director René Pingen, how does Laarman’s production process fit within this new national design narrative? Second, how might his presence amongst this Dutch avant-garde problemetize the very foundation of national design histories?

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The Transformation of Artisanship by Women of the Moroccan Rif

(BA Thesis)

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The following paper seeks to answer the question: how are women transforming Rifian artisanship through their work at Copitadal, an all-women’s artisan cooperative in Al Hoceima of the Moroccan Rif region? Through analysis of six narratives from interviews with artisans of Copitadal and their respective self-portraits created for the purpose of this research project, this question will be approached through the themes of the intersection of gender and Rifian identity, economic autonomy, tensions and overlaps in modernity and tradition, and personal and community development. In conclusion, this research, though limited in scope, may be used to further understand how the “modernity” of economic autonomy for women is being approached via tradition, from the reclaiming of traditionally male crafts to the role of woman as mother being the driving force in economic achievement.

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Future Flora's Contingent Return to Nature

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...As art and design prizes continue to look to contemporary artist’s interpretation of a “return to nature” in embodying the anxieties, and possible solutions, to the strains of Anthropocene life, how they define nature continues to oscillate. It would seem that, depending on the curator or jury’s working definition, we see two camps drifting further apart: a neo-vitalist camp, that which favours a return-to-nature via what mimics “biotic appearances,” and an organic camp, or that which favours what exemplifies “biotic functioning via the machine.”1 In this essay, I argue that Future Flora by Giulia Tomasello is where these camps converge. A health product, a tech intervention, an artwork: Future Flora uses technology to nurture a naturally recursive system: the immune system at play in the vaginal microbiome. The technology in Future Flora is simply a support system: not defining, mimicking or creating life itself (the infamous élan-vital), but rather assimilating within its inherent workings in order to assist in maintaining homeostasis. It relies on embodied openness, immunology as recursive system, and potentially provides a theoretical, small-scale rendering of a novel mode of geo-engineering—the likes of which humankind is desperately attempting within the constrains of the Anthropocene. Future Flora provides a compelling example of how we might leap from bio-engineering to geo-engineering in how we approach the immune system of our living planet. From this perspective, the question becomes: in which philosophies does Future Flora meditate and force us to ponder? And, of greater significance, how does it re-orient our contemporary rendering of the organic, and more broadly, nature itself?

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Multi-species kin and companion species: inter-species touch amidst isolation in the age of Covid-19

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In considering this virus-induced re-set in our relationship as a species to all life on Earth, I ask: what can a phenomenological approach to touch starvation in isolation reveal about the position of the human body and consciousness in relation to other species? I approach this question via two major thinkers on the forefront of multi-species entanglement and the current world-order’s relationship to nature: Donna Harraway and Jason Moore. Harraway’s Chthulucene and theories of multi-species kinship orient my first discussion of how the virus has altered our relationship in touch with companion species (namely “domesticated” animals). A number of accounts have surfaced from those quarantining in isolation on their newfound relationship to plants and companion species, which I analyse via Harraway and Moore’s frameworks for multi-species relations and, in particular, cheap natures. Regarding the second part of our discussion, where I consider plant-life as a companion species through physiological approach to touch, I bring a case study that measures stress reaction for a control group engaged in re-potting house plants vs. a computer-based task. This leads the discussion to engage with a more digital consideration, to bring the lens of entanglement to digital touch and digital intimacies. This is a necessary perspective to include considering that the vast majority of isolated individuals in this era of quarantine are engaged with touch across species and digital technologies, and there is a strong, perhaps inverse relationship between the two that cannot go unacknowledged. Thus, a secondary theme of inquiry lies in how might we reconsider the effects of inter-species and non-human touch in the digital era.

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