Masters thesis of fine arts life extending breadcrumbs facilitating morphosis and collaborative sculptural practice through posthuman ethics

Life-Extending Breadcrumbs Facilitating Morphosis and Collaborative Sculptural Practice through Posthuman Ethics This project has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Jessica Hsi-Ming Tan Bachelor of Fine Art (First Class Honours) RMIT University Bachelor of Contemporary Arts Edith Cowan University School of Art College of Design and Social Context RMIT University July 2021 Life-Extending Breadcrumbs Facilitating Morphosis and Collaborative Sculptural Practice through Posthuman Ethics Jessica Hsi-Ming Tan i I, Jessica Hsi-Ming Tan certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of the project is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed I acknowledge and express gratitude for the support I have received for my research through the provision of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship Signed: Jessica Tan 18 November 2021 ii Acknowledgements I respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the unceded lands that I live and work on, and that this research has taken place, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin nation and the Whadjuk Boodjar peoples of the Noongar nation I pay my respects to their Elders, past present and emerging I acknowledge that on a daily basis I am granted settler-colonial privileges as an uninvited guest on these stolen lands Deepest thanks to Associate Prof Mikala Dwyer for your warmth, openness and always unwavering support and confidence in my practice over the years Deepest thanks to Dr Laresa Kosloff and Dr Drew Pettifer for both your rigorous and critical analysis of my dissertation, of which would have not taken its trajectory without your generous contributions and challenges to my thinking Thank you to my parents, Catherine Tan Hwee Kian and Peter Tan Ngee Huat for the sacrifices you have made in order to privilege my life Thank you: Audrey Tan, James Cooper and Sebastian Temple for your various manifestations of care and emotional support, encouragement, feedback and openness to talk about art and doubt throughout this extended period of time Thank you for connection, Jemi Gale, Victoria Jost, Chris Doyle and Robyn Tran Eternal gratitude to the ocean in its enigmatic and emotional vastness, for bestowing upon me the power to feel reborn each time I am immersed, wherever and whenever that is and has been Thank you Andre Liew, Ceri Hann and Raph Buttonshaw for technical support and RMIT for financial support throughout this period iii Table of Contents Life-Extending Breadcrumbs: Facilitating Morphosis and Collaborative Sculptural Practice through Posthuman Ethics……………………… ………………………………………………i Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………… iii Table of Contents………………………… …………………………………………………….iv List of Figures………………………………… .v Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………… … Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….……….….2 Chapter One: Morphosis……………………………………………………………………….6 Coordinations………………………………………………………………………………………7 Pottering…………………………………………………………………………………………….9 Intuition………………………………………………………………………………………… …11 Conditionality………………………………………………………………………………… ….11 Reconfiguration………………………………………………………………………… ……….17 On Multiplicity……………………………………………………………………………………….20 Site-specific Installation Practice and Affective Potential………………………………………23 Chapter Two: Morphosis as an Ethico-Political Methodology Material Ethics of Morphosis………………………………………………………………………27 Potential is Political……………………………………………………………………………… 31 Chapter Three: Redefinitions………………………………………………………………….35 The Decentered Subject………………………………………………………………………….36 Becoming Other…………………………………………………………………………………….40 Conclusion: Practicing Mindfulness………………………………………………………….47 List of References…………………………………………………………….…………………50 Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………….53 iv List of Figures Figure SSSSS cherry seeds string Cherry and Mandarin Seeds and used wire 20192021……………………………… ….………………………………………………………………8 Figure A failed rice paper support structure experiment Rice paper 2020………………………………………………………………………………………………… 13 Figure Impromptu sword Fish bones, broken bus stop glass, found stick and soy wax 2019………………………………………………………………………………………………… 15 Figure ‘Ta-da! Flower’ for Insect Logic (with James Cooper) November 2019 at KINGS Artist Run……………………………………………………………………………………………15 Figure Insect Logic (Installation View), (with James Cooper) November 2019 at KINGS Artist Run Image courtesy of Chris Bowes……….………………………………………………15 Figure Dimmey’s carpet with accumulated detritus; glitter, hair, dust, stickers and dried leaves……………………………………………………………………………………………… 18 Figure Upcycled wood that has been reused in various projects from 2018-2021…….….19 Figure Upcycled wood that has been reused in various projects from 2018-2021……… 19 Figure Longan Taxi Seat Macrame Longan seed beads, dried lemons, dog collar and my hair from 2016-2019 2020…….………………………………………………………………… 32 Figure 10 Anthropomorphic cabbage Collaborative work with unknown dog, tennis ball and cabbage figurine 2019………… ……………………………………………………… ……… 38 Figure 11 The Stink Inside My Soul is Coming to Get Me (detail) Dremelled found wood and tinted beeswax September 2019 at Mailbox Art Space…………………………………….38 Figure 12 Sad Spell butterfly Found butterfly figurine, used ribbon, dried lambs ear leaves, box thorn branch, found star hair comb, pipecleaner and ceramics 2020…………………….38 Figure 13 A vignette of relations Sea snail shells, found copper, blu-tack, chewed beeswax, dried buffalo grass, chewing gum, PVA glue and lattice 20192021………………………………………………………………………………………………….41 Figure 14 Rain Clay (before firing)…2020………………………………………………… ….42 Figure 15 Rain Clay (after firing) (photoshop maquette)……………………………………… 43 Figure 16 Snail latte art collaboration Water colour pencil on paper, garden snail teeth marks and upholstery tacks 2021………………………………………………………………….44 v Abstract This practice-led research project considers human agency in relation to matter and materialism Seeking to unlearn human assertions of agency as dominant, this project fosters relational and collaborative exchanges with matter that manifest as installations and sculptural interventions Informed by new materialist and posthuman frameworks, it recognises that material hierarchies are held in place by what we choose to prioritise in human worlds This is practiced through open and responsive sculptural installations which form in relation to Other matter in order to speak with, think with, learn and unlearn, rather than overwrite the emergence of other agential capacities Site-specific installations emerge through studio-based research, where I engage with, respond to and configure accumulated matter that I have collected from everyday material encounters The material engagements affectively respond to an ethics of care where accountability is sought within material practice, enacted through the use of found and organic matter, slow accumulation, reuse and regeneration The installations synthesise my associative and intuitive drawing practice with sculptural assemblages, each working in dialogue to form embodied encounters Enactments of undoing and rebuilding seek to decentre and disperse the personal codification of language across ongoing bodies of work which become self-generative in nature The installations undergo endless reconfigurations which explore the materials potential to ‘become Other’, or ‘multiple’, through various iterations which alter the forms and presentation of the material combinations This pushes matter beyond singular cultural contextualisation as it undergoes a transformative process of morphosis Introduction Life-Extending Breadcrumbs explores the transformation of materials as they evolve through process-based research What I call a ‘morphosis methodology’ traces my encounters and engagements with materials in the context of the everyday and the studio ‘Morphosis’ is a slow accumulation of matter and ‘pottering’; which is an unfocused and slowed productivity where I intuitively respond to matter The series of installations drawn from this research are considered material iterations of morphosis, ongoing in their constant shifts through studio and exhibition contexts These move in a feedback loop from being made in the studio to exhibition sites then back to the studio in a continual process of alteration and reconfiguration Sculptural installations are assembled from an accumulation of organic matter such as fruit pips and skins, dried corn cobs, sticks, eggshells and objects such as repurposed broken ceramics, discarded pieces of broken mirror and hand-built clay forms and water colour pencil drawings left outside to collect the markings of rain and garden snails as a collaboration of forces I explore the non-fixity and reuse of individual material components These comprise intimate, hand built sculptural matter, often combining an accumulation of found and organic matter that has been collected and reformed The sculptural matter collected has often already been made by forces in the world, for example; an uprooted plant that has been dried out by the sun; dried glue scraped off the pavement from another person’s project; or mummified lemons plucked from a tree that has become shriveled as a result of being under watered It is also comprised of drawings and paintings that depict biomorphic forms These intuitively respond to mark-making and take pictorial form through a tacit knowledge that reveals itself through the spontaneity of associative memory This leads to a straying from any initial perceived outcome; a morphosis Rather than as separate practices, these are considered as material components that integrate with other sculptural matter to comprise my installations Through site-specific installation methods these works seek to embody the site they inhabit, existing in dialogue with each other to form affective and transformative installations By transformative, I mean that the viewers’ experience of the work seeks to be Other; what the viewer cannot comprehend in verbal or written language, yet there is a logic that can be felt in terms of navigating the space and experiencing the material qualities of the work The material approaches and forms resulting from morphosis are not predetermined; however, they operate within set parameters The practical research follows the idea of new materialist possibility to generate new understandings and redefinitions of matter, but within the confines of ecological concerns around sustainability Here I seek to be accountable for my material outputs through discerning what materials to engage with These are affectively informed and driven by an ethical inclination of revising how we engage with our surroundings in order to rethink our role as humans living with and amongst nonhumans This leads to a posthuman enquiry of decentering anthropocentric notions of selfhood in order to prompt a more embodied and open engagement relationally with matter I liken the research to a circulating process of slow digestion, regurgitation, indigestion and redigestion as I have navigated various stages of learning and unlearning to arrive at revised posthuman understandings surrounding morphosis, subjectivity, agency, affective potential and becoming Other Chapter One elaborates on a series of practice-led studio approaches that constitute a morphosis methodology This aligns with a ‘Tumbleweed Methodology’ (Akira 2013), something that gains its own momentum and becomes a self-sustaining body of work Morphosis spirals beyond any original intention to represent anything It explores the fluid nature of outcomes within studio research and installation practice through practical approaches, which often overlap when encountering and handling materials ‘Coordinations’ (Gan and Tsing 2019) suggest that encounters with matter are more complex and meaningful in their engagements beyond what is conceived of as coincidental and accidental in human classificatory logics Pottering describes a slowed and meandering production process in the studio that shares an affinity with artist Sarah crowEST’s studio methodologies (2013) Pottering is theorised as an alternative model of production within capitalism, through slowed and accumulative labour I locate the origins and formation of intuition at the intersection of historical knowledge and affect (Berlant 2011) The conditionality that informs the morphosis methodology is determined by the occurrence of shifts and sensitivity to conditions (Jeppesen 2019, p.101, Cannell 2016) Within this, I discuss my return to drawing practice under the conditionality of the COVID-19 pandemic and trauma Reconfiguration explains the eventual loss of representation through the continuous reuse and regeneration of materials through an example of wooden structures which are remade each time they move through studio and exhibition space Reconfiguration speaks to the redefinition of the material beyond how it is culturally recognised (Butler 2005) This runs parallel to exploring how material can exceed singular understanding through multiple iterations and reworkings; the material becomes Other I examine various encounters with unconventional art materials in everyday life and the treatments that specific materials undergo in order to arrive at an outcome These outcomes are not concrete and are able to be altered and reconfigured later Sculptural forms and matter undergo a process of morphosis that is generative and accumulative These transformations are explored through material potentiality and sitespecific installation practice Morphosis can be understood through the idea of becoming multiple This engages new materialist understandings of agency (Bennett 2001) through the idea of the singular material and the singular (human) subject always located within a state of continuous becoming (Grosz 2010); being made and remade again Subjectivity reaches further redefinition through a turn towards posthuman notions of human agency (Braidotti 1994) evidenced in the concept of Becoming Cockroach (Tontey 2019) and my own reconsiderations towards matter In my practice, unforeseeable material encounters and unknowable exchanges across material agencies locate the human as a relation within a set of relations Multiplicity occurs in site-specific installation practice through an engagement with affective potential (Seigworth 2010, p.1, Massumi 2002) and generates nuanced shifts in perception (Sharp 2017) through materials exceeding their familiar contexts Chapter Two identifies the contextual origins shaping ethical concerns around material accountability and sustainably sourcing, reusing and disposing of materials in the practices of a morphosis methodology Morphosis responds to ecological grief (Cunsolo and Ellis 2018) in the context of the climate and ecological emergency and bushfire crisis’ within ‘Australia’ (2019-ongoing) I develop a sustainable approach to production through considering how and what materials are sourced, disposed of, reused and regenerated This is applied via material accumulation through collecting and reconfiguring the sculptural matter that make up my installations, which then in turn slow down my production processes and outcomes through intuitive yet considered approaches For example; I have been collecting the stems of pumpkins each time they are consumed for a meal in my household since 2018 The durational accumulating depends on whether the vegetable is in season, which makes the collection of the material and the evolution of the artwork a slowed production process Once the artwork reaches fruition, the materials can either be reused or composted The second part of the chapter argues that matter ‘becoming multiple’, through an exploration of potential is a political act as it concerns the generation of new knowledge It is a ‘sensible mutation’ (Rolnik 2006), what is familiar but estranged through new passageways It explores a state of alterity (Cheah 2008) which shifts our relations through an openness towards the Other This is explored through engagements with nonhuman matter Potentiality is an engagement with uncertainty (Cocker 2013); it also has the capacity to challenge what exists outside of dualistic thinking in its exploration of momentum of possibility (Grosz 2011, p.66, Barad 2008, p.182) The generation of new knowledge emerges through altering how we bring new understandings to cultural associations, offering a temporary alternative way of being (Massumi 2003); where we allow ourselves to be open to the positivity of Otherness and difference Appendix Ongoing drawings October 2020-December 2020 Drawings every morning 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 Appendix Studio work and pottering Documentation of matter in the studio towards the end of my candidature Double-sided fence made from morphing continuously cut and reconstituted wood Twigs taped together to form a tumbleweed Edamame bean skin artworks shifting through spaces as a bedroom chandelier, staircase window work and then at TCB gallery as floorwork 96 97 Appendix eternal return boulevard, a collaborative exhibition with Audrey Tan, at TCB gallery, June 2021 This was a collaboration which explored the intersections of personal history exchanged between siblings, opening to the convergences of our respective process led art practices It reignited a dialogue which germinated from pottering in the backyard as children together This revisited our mother’s backyard through a series of warped, romanticised affective orientations and memories embedded in our psyches These morphed through the development of the project Some of the materials used were considered collaborative as they were accumulated from shared eating, collecting and making Collectively ingested materials in the works include: corn cobs, edamame bean skins, mandarin pips, cherry pits, lemon seeds, peppercorn berries, custard apple seeds, pumpkin stems, nectarine seeds and barramundi fish bones Full exhibition documentation not yet available 98 99 100 ... support and RMIT for financial support throughout this period iii Table of Contents Life- Extending Breadcrumbs: Facilitating Morphosis and Collaborative Sculptural Practice through Posthuman Ethics? ??…………………….. .Life- Extending Breadcrumbs Facilitating Morphosis and Collaborative Sculptural Practice through Posthuman Ethics Jessica Hsi-Ming Tan i I, Jessica Hsi-Ming... conditionality of the COVID-19 pandemic and trauma Reconfiguration explains the eventual loss of representation through the continuous reuse and regeneration of materials through an example of wooden