Last week’s feedback collective with Shelley Lu, Carrie, and my LowRes comrades was super helpful. I am thankful for the generous notes. I still need to clarify my/human presence as I cross water with the rock, boroscope’s imagery as being reminiscent of entrances into the body, and the semiotics of tech/tools that I will incorporate. The scope/form felt too broad.

I am doing tests with Touch Designer and a sensor, thanks to Hayden, who shared access to a wonderful tutorial. I am frustrated as things are moving too slowly in terms of experiments/ execution of prototypes. I am also setting up a soil moisture sensor to make it work with p5 via Arduino. Hopefully, by Thursday, there will be some results worth sharing.

My plan is to end up with an assemblage of experiments introducing a triad/holy trinity of non-human entities:

  • ROCK = the mama, an ancient, maternal material from which all soil comes.
  • SOIL = the child, a living endangered microbiome facing extinction, made from the weathering of rocks.
  • HOLE = the spirit portal, an ontological parasite defined by soil, a passage that symbolizes both extraction/violence towards the earth as well as continuum and unity.

QUESTION

How can animisms* and relationality with the more-than-human world liberate us from anthropocentrism and out of the anthropocene?  Briefly stated, how can animisms guide us out of the anthropocene?

* Stated in plural as here I embrace the diverse indigenous animist ontologies, new animism (David Abram or Graham Harvey,) as well as decolonising discourses and critiques of Western ontology (Isabelle Stengers, Donna Haraway, and Tim Ingold among others). Animisms, within the context of my project encompass:

    • the dynamism and agencies of non-human and non-living forces, both organic and inorganic
    • a liberating, healing recognition of different temporalities and movement, deep time and life in rocks / landscapes
    • the act of engaging other-than-human neighbours on the understanding that the category ‘person’ includes more than humans

STANCE

I believe that animistic perspectives are a necessary alternative to the anthropocentrism, which shapes our lives and has led to our planetary crisis. 

GOALS

  • Question narratives that shape our relationship to the environment, and how we participate in these assemblages
  • Express reverence towards and contemplate relationships with other-than-human entities
  • Embrace entanglements and co-evolving with both nonhuman and nonliving entities
  • Engage participants in the more-than-human conception of dynamic topographies while evoking animistic, relationalist sensibilities

INSTALLATION WITH INTERACTIVE VIDEOS

I will celebrate the personhood of a mama rock by carrying it across deep water from one piece of land to another, as a ritual honoring rock’s dynamism/movement in deep time and to hear and understand the rock via butoh. In butoh the dance is not “I” moving but one is being danced by biotic and abiotic forces. With butoh, akin to shamanic state, one humbly embodies the perspective of the other-than-human. 

Soil will become an interactor in the filmed Rock-Crossing. My plan is to set up sensors in soil and have moisture readings impact the recorded video/sound of the Rock-Crossing.

soil sensor/s ➜ arduino ➜ p5.js or TD ➜ visuals/sounds

The video will be a collaboration with the below ground environment. With the conditions of the soil determining the form of the video, the resulting video will be akin to paintings created by swaying tree branches or aleatoric music. It will capture the dynamic nature of soil and actualize our relationality with the more-than-human through the creation of art. 

Rock’s stillness is perceived but its dynamism is understood in conjunction with rock-crossing. The “live feed” is a reminder that the rock is alive.

Holes will be explored via a borescope camera and presented along with sounds of the inside/ outside of holes. These spirit portals allow us a glimpse of the underground worlds and the endangered soil. The goal of this piece is to convey reverence for the world of soil in opposition to its domination/extraction.

Documented holes include a mole hole that leads to a swamp, indigenous (Shinnecock) human dwelling hole that regenerated, storm drain hole, feral hole under a fallen tree, woman-dug hole. 

I will attempt to indicate microbial exchanges that blend humans with all entities and the billions of living entities that vitalize the soil. 

The videos will be impacted by gentle digital interventions (using sensors and p5.js) to illustrate the dynamic, magical, more-than-human, intermingled world of living and nonliving, biotic and abiotic. I hope to accomplish subtle effects driven by soil value readings. 

PHASE 2 / HOLES FOR SALE (POSSIBLY POST-THESIS OR SEPARATE)

  • Presented as an intrusion into the animist experiences in the form of a “promoted message” encouraging purchase of holes via NFTs.
  • Holes for Sale acknowledges human impact/commodification and ridicules capitalist enslavement of non-human entities. 
  • The purchasing/adopting of ontological parasites is symbolic of the participation in capitalist destruction and the conflict of stewardship that hole ownership offers.
  • Buyers will receive visit privileges and updates of hole status and future membership in the Hole Society.

PHASE 3/ WEB-BASED EXPERIENCE OF THE ABOVE (POST THESIS)

 

LINK TO MIDTERM SLIDE PRESENTATION