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

Abstract This practice-led research project considers human agency in relation to matter and materialism.. Site-specific installations emerge through studio-based research, where I engag

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, 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

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

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……… … 1

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

Figure 5 Insect Logic (Installation View), (with James Cooper) November 2019 at KINGS

Artist Run Image courtesy of Chris Bowes……….………15

Figure 6 Dimmey’s carpet with accumulated detritus; glitter, hair, dust, stickers and dried

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

2019-2021……….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

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

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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

site-specific installation practice Morphosis can be understood through the idea of becoming

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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

Chapter Three links the methodological approaches of morphosis developed in Chapter One with external frameworks in new materialist feminist and posthuman theory (Barad 2007, Braidotti 1994) The research avoids anthropocentric notions of subjecthood through the revision of humans in relation to matter and their environments Works are produced as collaborative acts between forces, which seeks to expand beyond my subjectivity and

understanding This is contextualised through the application of theoretical frameworks including reading Karen Barad’s Agential Realism (2007), intra-actions (Barad 2007) and Rosi Braidotti’s Nomadic Subject (1994) together The crossover of these concepts distills a core idea that the subject is becoming Other in the setting of the world in its own continual

processes I discover that the feminist subject (me) is in search of new ways of becoming more than themselves; continually evolving in how they are defined; in a world that does not centre humans The subject does not seek to control or conquer but to discover, engage with and newly configure A posthuman in-relation-to considers the self as matter in co-existence with differential matter In art practice, this informs my material engagements through

unlearning human assertions of agency as dominant These are relearned as relational exchanges that come to form collaborative works

In summarising the research, I remain suspended in-relation-to other matter The research subtly reconsiders material relations through collaborative works made in an exchange between me and numerous forces Remaining in ongoing dialogue with these relational thoughts informs an awareness that material hierarchies are born from what we choose to prioritise in human worlds This draws on the importance of moving forward in connection with material vitalities through practicing openness and responsivity in relation to what is Other in order to speak with, think with, learn and unlearn, rather than overwriting the emergence of other agential capacities This understanding suggests further research possibilities in terms

of facilitating site-specific interventions beyond a gallery context, which are not exclusive to human use or function

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Chapter One: Morphosis

My interest in pushing matter into new life has led me to develop a methodological approach that I term ‘morphosis’ ‘Morphosis’ entails continuous transitions; it is a process of

transformation It is the enactment of slowness and openness to varying conditions - an adaptability that is a continuous becoming A methodology of morphosis begins with a

material inquiry that prioritises feeling and intuition as knowing This means following the way materials resonate together aesthetically to produce affects, as well as following how they might behave due to their inherent qualities This unforeseeable process often exceeds my control and is less about manipulating a material to represent something specific It uses what

is at hand to fix a problem, embracing failure, experimentation and uncertainty This

sometimes requires trials to test materials in an attempt to minimise wastage, but these tests often become the work itself Through an open-ended approach to material practices,

tangential pathways form, embracing unexpected outcomes

Morphosis runs parallel to a ‘Tumbleweed Methodology’ (Akira 2013) This term conjures the mental imagery of watching a circular piece of fibre roll in the wind In the natural movements

of a tumbleweed, it circulates and endlessly moves, collecting information from diverse bodies

of knowledge in its lifetime The process of becoming-tumbleweed is ‘the agglomeration of matter and energy that ceaselessly rolls for its own production, its form being its very mode of (trans)formation and movement In short, it just goes.’ (Akira 2013, p 2) Where a

‘Tumbleweed Methodology’ (Akira 2013) entails being led to uncontrollable outcomes through intuition and following practice-led studio research, morphosis operates within set

parameters, which then impose limits on what is produced What comes to be represented through physical form has meandered through its processes of making but are not void of control The materials respond to an ethic of care and are sourced with specific concerns around sustainability, slowness and reuse

This chapter breaks down methods in studio and installation practice that collectively

characterise the movements of a morphosis methodology These are not formulaic nor contained to themselves and often overlap into each other when producing an outcome

‘Coordinations’ (Gan and Tsing 2019) reframe coincidental material encounters as more specific than chance and noticing, sometimes even illegible outside of human cognition

‘Pottering’ considers an unfocused spending time with matter as a slowed approach to

production and labour ‘Intuition’ accounts for the formation of intuition through cultural

theorist Lauren Berlant’s understanding of intuition as a transformative meeting of history meeting affect (2011) ‘Conditionality’ emerges through the uncontrollable elements of living forces I am surrounded by, informing the morphosis methodology through experiences of being in the world ‘Reconfiguration’ addresses the repurposing of materials through iterations

and the remaking of work over this period of research This pushes matter from singularity

into becoming multiple This transition seeks to account for matter becoming more than what

it is Becoming multiple also considers a human-centric notion of subjectivity as becoming open to states of alterity (Cheah 2008) The studio approaches combine ‘coordinations’ (Gan and Tsing 2019), pottering, intuition, reconfiguration and conditionality These account for how matter is collected and accumulated through unplanned encounters and then

contemplated and reformed in the studio into open-ended assemblages, which can be

reconfigured through iterative installations The open-ended assemblages transform from the singular to multiple through the material configurations moving from studio to exhibition context Through shifts in contexts, matter from the studio is reformed through considering site-specific installation methods in relation to ‘affecting and being affected’ (Spinoza cited in

Massumi, 2002)

Coordinations

Morphosis contains an essence of the co-incidental, in the seemingly random choices of materials that are used, often because it uses what is at hand rather than sourced These co-incidental occurrences are reconsidered as ‘coordinations’ (Elaine Gan and Anna Tsing 2019, p.20) These are instead temporal responses across difference, which establish connection at first through visual association/material resonance but are often beyond basic human

cognition

Coordinations are not coincidental occurrences, of things that just happen to occur simultaneously Coordinations emerge from sequences that sediment, recur, endure, echo, extinguish and lie dormant From these variations, and intersections between variations, a specific attunement unfolds and recurs (Gan and Tsing 2019, p.20-21)

Gan and Tsing’s term, ‘coordinations’ (2019), suggests that the emergence of matter does not require intentional communication or mutual legibility between the exchanges that occur World-making always happens irrespective of human intervention and the privileging of intentionality as the basis of responsiveness too often brings us back to anthropocentric projections of human lifeworlds (Gan and Tsing 2019) ‘Coordinations’ (Gan and Tsing 2019) prompt me to ask myself, how can I work collaboratively with other ontological forces as a human through engaging my agency, but also allowing other agencies to speak? In my conception of it, post-human art practice cannot be a total erasure of human presence from art making because it is always within the Anthropos Instead, the humans’ intervention is

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collaborative From my research I understand that I cannot drastically shift human relations to things, but only engage with this relation in order to rethink our perceptive tendencies

Figure 1. SSSSS cherry seeds string Cherry and Mandarin Seeds and used wire 2019-2021

My studio shelves house an assortment of hoarded materials that have accumulated over two and a half years Each time I encountered an unexpected material or found something on the ground, I collected it Although it did not yet have purpose that existed for my consumption within art, it was embedded with the potential to become; to be transformed or part of a larger configuration in my installations Later in the research, I realised that these collected materials are already things in themselves that originate from relations beyond an art context An example of this can be found through seasonally collecting mandarin pips in Winter, acorns in Spring and edamame bean skins and cherry pips in Summer across two and a half years I

hadn’t collected these with premeditated outcomes in mind, but simply because I came across them so often when ingesting seasonal fruits and meals determined by the weather (aside from acorns, on walks) My use of these materials formed slowly I eventually

dremelled small holes in the seeds to form beads and strung them on reused wire The used wire had an organic posture from previous use Once the seeds were strung, the deviating posture of the wire influenced the behaviour that these strings curled into I had originally

used these seed strings as part of a collaborative work with Audrey Tan for eternal return

boulevard at TCB gallery in June 2021 These were intended as provisional works to be

site-specifically attached to fixtures that we wax cast in bronze With this iteration, I considered the seed strings as materials that I had made out of matter to be configured into a work In their next iteration, I rethought the use of fixtures and responded instead to the pre-formed shape of the second-hand wire The resulting work did not need to find fixed form, but rests in its ‘SSSSS’ shape on the floor (see figure 1, page 8)

‘Coordinations’ (Gan and Tsing 2019) prompted me to reconsider what I have conceived of as co-incidental or accidental as it accounts for ‘specific material entanglements’ (Barad 2007, p.178) that often exceed human understanding in their complexity In the studio, I remind myself that being unable to fully comprehend what I’m enacting through making is a vital aspect of my research methods When I engage with a material by ‘chance’, there are

multiple relations outside of myself and the material at play, which enable unpredictable interactions to form (Barad 2007) Preempting the purpose and form of materials can flatten the opportunity for further meaning to emerge, and for the agency of the material to simply exist outside of human frameworks

Pottering

Pottering is defined as to move around without hurrying, and in a relaxed and pleasant way(Dictionary of Cambridge 2021, pottering entry) It is a meandering pace at which acting and thinking are achieved, for example, when gardening Mid 17th century etymology of pottering derives from ‘Pote’ which is to push, kick or poke repeatedly (Dictionary of Oxford 2021, pottering entry) To translate these formal literary definitions into a contextual understanding within the studio, casually prodding a material until it eventuates into an idea is an inevitable although slow method of labour and production In the studio, ‘pottering’ is likened to when you’re not doing anything in particular, but divergences occur; it is a generative space

Pottering is a type of unfocused thinking and working, which playfully engages with

assemblages and configurations in the studio, exhibition site or at home

My affective engagements with materials when making work can sometimes be likened to an adrenaline rush In my interaction with materials, I follow a preoccupation with feeling excited

construction by attempting to pierce a joining hole with my hands feeling like giant mallets I sit there fiddling and pulling things that I have collected apart, moving works around and sorting old works into convoluted categorical piles to be later reused, cleaned or re-organised into my own systems

During these times, I remind myself of the resilience of doing nothing, doing less, working slowly or not producing consistent tangible outcomes which meet capitalist expectations of labour This sentiment can be traced back to Herman Melville’s character Bartleby, in the

short story titled Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street Bartleby’s line ‘I would prefer

not to’ (1853) negates the polite refusal to do the work asked of him in his workplace

Through indifferent refusal or preference to not work, the worker displaces themselves from their working identity through refusing to assimilate The subtext of this looks towards new alternatives of production and work, imagining a politics which incorporates desire through individual workers autonomy (Gavroche 2012) Bartleby’s quote has since been thought upon

as a ‘human strike’ (Gavroche 2012), a detachment from the ‘social, utilitarian functions, necessary for the production and reproduction of State-Capital’ (Gavroche 2012, p.4) Whilst

‘pottering’ doesn’t feel productive at the time of blockage, it can be valued as an alternative form of labour through its slow trickling eventuality in production, which seeks to challenge the working method of efficiency and productivity within capitalism ‘Pottering’ isn’t inherently anti-capitalist because these alternate forms of labour, which incorporate thinking, doing and reflexivity are still accommodated for within capitalism, but the introduction of slowness and the sustainable sourcing of reusable materials is a tactic that places less pressure on value and outcome

‘Pottering’ eventually leads to outcomes through spending time in the studio surrounded by matter and daydreaming, re-organising or simply placing things together to see ‘what just goes’ (Akira 2013) I consider ‘pottering’ to be an embodied approach to making It is an evolving lingering thought, which then translates to material outputs An example of ‘pottering’

is presented in Anthropomorphic Cabbage, 2019 (see figure 10, 11, 12, page 38) where I

house an anthropomorphic cabbage perfectly into a dog chewed tennis ball that I brought to the studio from the park.

Intuition

Intuition can be understood within a studio and installation context as following the flow of what feels good at the time without applying prescriptive methods or outcomes (Cocker 2013) Observations that are drawn from my own practical research suggest that human intuition and associative thinking are not void of visual influence; what we feel and what we know about the world are intertwined

In studio practice, working intuitively means there is an uncertain direction and outcome that one navigates in the present of the moment Cultural theorist Lauren Berlant notes that recognising forms, patterns, colours and textures that ‘spontaneously’ emerge from working intuitively actually often arise from external influences, which have seeped into our

subconscious unknowingly (Berlant 2011) Berlant supports that the visceral response of

‘intuition’ is not just autonomic activity, but instead it is where affect meets history, ‘in all of its chaos, normative ideology, and embodied practices of discipline and invention’ (Berlant 2011, p.52) Although everything derives from an exposure to prior historical and contemporary knowledge and influence, ‘visceral response’ and ‘intuition intelligence’ transform these pre-existing thoughts into hybrid thoughts (Berlant 2011) My intuition most likely gleans visual information stored from artist research, art exhibition documentation that circulates online combined with things experienced optically and sensorially in discount and thrift stores; specific architectural traits of the suburbs I have lived in or commute through (such as

decorative steel iron gates, pillars and water features); and organic forms from fruits and vegetables, introduced and native species of flora and fauna that are encountered by my adventures on foot My practice is not aesthetically driven but aesthetic decisions are made in the process of developing work In my approaches I consider that the aesthetic qualities of matter have an affective hold that can alter the way one intuits This involves a feedback loop where each informs the other This responsive and undefinable quality can be attributed to affect Berlant suggests that affect is the transitional point of change that lies within intuition and is the capacity for generating something new or uncanny (2011) It is the passing of a threshold between what one knows and an engagement with the unknowable

Conditionality

Each component of matter that comes together to form my installations marks the

transformative process of morphosis by becoming self-generative Arts researcher and writer Sarat Maharaj calls indeterminacy a ‘state of idling’ (2013) This is a type of flux that is

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indeterminate, oscillates across art and thinking, and is ‘reducible neither to cognitive-stuff, to

a conventional notion of the thinking process, nor to art’ (Maharaj 2013, p.158) It

encapsulates a sense of the ‘free ranging and exploratory, with a momentum of its own’ (Maharaj 2013, p.158)

The production of my work and accumulation of materials is informed by conditionality Conditionality is the contextual shifts that are specific to certain environments such as my studio, living space or exhibition site This holds the capacity for alternate states of

transformation and growth from varying sets of conditions, for example my mood, the weather

or the availability of materials at hand Artist Nina Canell contemplates, ‘In a way, [sculpture]

is sensitive to a condition, or perhaps sculpture is a condition? Something that can be

conditioned that can, in turn, condition things.’ (BOMB Magazine, 2016) For me, this isn’t exclusive to sculpture but applicable to the process of sourcing materials, art making and the installation of exhibitions

At various points in the research, I was faced with unexpected and unforeseeable challenges This included an unforgettable trauma of witnessing a suicide on campus, and (like many others in Naarm/Melbourne), being confined to limited spaces for extended periods of time throughout the ongoing restrictions of the COVID-19 Pandemic Reaching for pencil and paper has always been the most instant and familiar form of making for me Drawing

functions as a direct connection with something outside of myself to expel thought and

feeling; a diaristic vessel to confide in and be led by The works that formed from these unprecedented occasions was not the direction I was wanting my material research to take, but resulted from the conditionality of the time and what I felt I had the capacity to do There were many contradictory feelings of compulsion, loss, boredom and pressure to produce This compulsion can be explained through Travis Jeppesen’s concept of ‘vehicularity’ (2019, p.101), which situates itself within conditionality ‘Vehicularity’ (2019, p.101) does not

separate bodily knowing from mental knowing It prioritises ‘the process, the movement and the action not what it completes as the purpose’ (Jeppesen 2019, p.101) ‘Vehicularity’ as such might implore mobility, the occurrence of shifts, a moving through spaces that Rosi Braidotti proposes through a figurative ‘nomadism’ (1994), which is a mobility that enables the redefinition of boundaries1 On both occasions, my practice diverged back into drawing, a medium that has since childhood presented itself to me as a coping mechanism, a form of therapy and head emptying The drawings produced were circumstantial, partially due to having thoughts and works in progress preserved in my studio space, which I had no access

1 Braidotti develops this concept specifically in relation to redefining the socially constructed ‘wo-man that has been defined (and misrepresented) by man’ proposing the female subject as becoming other This is further discussed on page 36

to for most of the year A year later, these intimate drawings were remade into drawings in watercolour pencil that I resolved to leave outside to become collaborative works with nature The aim was to connect with something out of my control, which would subsequently alter what the drawing becomes The drawings had elemental exposure to wind and rain Garden snails and slugs voluntarily consumed the cellulose of the paper, transforming the drawings into delicate lace-like fabric As months overlapped in passing, the drawings did not remain the same and I became more aware of my intentions to facilitate relations with external matter

by placing the drawings outside This allowed the drawings to shift in their meaning and aesthetic Considering ‘vehicularity’ (Jeppesen 2019, p.101), I attempt to continuously reuse old work through reconfiguration This incorporates things I already own, have found or collected, as well as new things accumulated from living in the world by walking, waiting, eating, thinking and not thinking

Figure 2. A failed rice paper support structure experiment Rice paper 2020

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An example of conditionality begins with finding the end of a rice paper roll in my bag after swimming laps one day I had chewed it off and put it in my backpack to compost when I arrived home because it was stale, rubbery and difficult to ingest Airborne and left to solidify

in the soiled caverns of my backpack pocket, it became mummified until I later rediscovered

it It was unrecognisable in its thick, blurry opacity and durable plastic nature I later found a piece of dried carrot contained in its skin that led me to identify it as that rice paper roll – I was impressed at its material ambiguity I took mental note to experiment with how it could be used as more than an edible skin to encase food Its initial appeal was that it was

biodegradable if left long enough to soak, with its only ingredients comprised of rice, water and salt Once this experiment had taken place, I discovered its surprisingly structural

capacity and hardened quality, as well as a faint sour odour I had an idea to hand-form a support structure out of the rice paper, in a similar approach to hand building forms out of clay

by working on sections methodically then waiting for these to dry out a little before expanding the scale The structure was intended to hold smaller found objects in an installation

Although the support structure never reached fruition and I only made a base without a stand (see figure 2), this material experiment arose from the conditionality of a specific discovery on

a particular day A leftover snack from swimming resulted in a new material and method of making The abstraction of the failed rice paper never made it out of the studio, and inevitably waits to be combined with another material or integrated into a larger installation in future projects

Morphosis Enacted: An Impromptu Sword

Figure 3 (Top left) Impromptu sword Fish bones, broken bus stop glass, found stick and soy wax 2019

Figure 4. (Top right) ‘Ta-da! Flower’ for Insect Logic, (with James Cooper) November 2019 at KINGS Artist Run

Figure 5. (Bottom) Insect Logic (Installation View), (with James Cooper) November 2019 at KINGS Artist Run

exhibition in 2017, which I glue to the wax sword I want it to be freestanding I search for something I can use for a base I drill a hole into a crystallised plastic basket figurine that broke 3 years ago, which I hoarded exactly for this purpose (!) I turn it upside down so that it resembles a hat and slot the branch inside the hole so that it becomes freestanding In the process of being transported to my studio, the sculpture breaks I save the remaining parts to

be reconfigured into something else, eventually I glue a piece of salt dough that resembles a flower on to the branch (see figure 4) It no longer resembles a sword however this loss of translation and spontaneity makes the object work; it has morphed

This work undergoes many cycles of being made by various entities; the tree made the branch and (perhaps) a force of wind blew it down A person harvested the soybean that cultivated the wax I made the sculpture that broke but saved the remnants for a potential new work The original offcut of the branch undergoes a number of transitions; from a sword and then to something that vaguely represents a flower Representation in this instance was not overly intentional, but rather occurred through a process of morphosis The unpredictable nature of these sculptural forms uncovers characteristics, such as duration, provisionality and spontaneity

Material experimentation exists in a zone of uncertainty; it engages the unforeseeable This process involves not knowing what direction a work might take, or when it will arrive Emma Cocker elaborates on ‘not knowing’ as that which is ‘not always concerned with producing new knowledge [but] that which exceeds it…not by extending its limits but by failing to be fully comprehended in its terms’ (Cocker 2013, p.127) The failure of the object’s

comprehension through cultural representation and language allows us to experience alterity Applying this to a methodology of morphosis, the morphing of materials as they transform into what is uncertain, unplanned and unfamiliar is evidenced through my example of the

aforementioned rice paper experiment (see figure 2, page 13)

The ability for the sword to be reformed into another type of object or detached and

reassembled makes it plural through its continuous/endless reconfigurations This is the sword exceeding its singularity as a stick, or as a sword once it becomes a flower (see figure

3 and figure 4) The morphosis example discussed (figure 4) is a culturally recognisable symbol of a flower This figuration is not intentional and often manifests through a

spontaneous morphing process; an intersection of intuition and affect It seems impossible to break away from visual associations or cultural interpretation My studio-led research

incorporates both figuration and abstraction (see figure 2: failed rice paper experiment) I take accumulated, every day organic materials from the world and morph them into intuitive forms that are also part of larger installations

The flower cannot exceed how it is perceived as an individual sculpture, but it is intended to punctuate what comprises a larger installation (see figure 5) In a broader sense, when encountering the installation, the singular object can be understood as becoming multiple It works associatively as part of a larger installation that presents an expanded relationship with materials The process of morphosis is not necessarily recoverable to gallery viewers, as they are not privy to the iterative, experimental nature of the evolving works However, when read associatively in a wider installation context, the meeting of spontaneous unintentional

figuration and abstraction characterise the installations and their affective capacities This is

discussed further in Site-Specific Installation Practice and Affective Potential (see page 23)

Reconfiguration

At the heart of this research, I have been trying to push matter as far as it can go I consider

my treatment of the materials as being similar to ‘life-extending breadcrumbs.’ Breadcrumbs extend the life of an ingredient that you don’t have much of The meal you are cooking no longer requires a focus on that central ingredient because it has so much filler There is an

essence of what was once there, but its genetic make-up, taste and texture are altered In the

studio, this alteration is the act of collecting, reusing and reinventing until the material is exhausted or no longer changeable Material that is configured in the studio and then

exhibited is at a point where it is resting in an idea Matter is resolved to a point but exists in non-fixity and can be reworked once the exhibition duration has ended In the studio, these revisions are made once I have introduced a new work It is like clicking a refresh button on a screen Except that each time it is clicked, something new happens The different iterations of

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my work moving through exhibition spaces can be likened to an amalgamation of remnants

on the floor; some things stick and others can be removed

Figure 6. Dimmey’s carpet with accumulated detritus; glitter, hair, dust, stickers and dried leaves

Speaking analogously, this methodology is not like chewing a banana many times and regurgitating it into a flat, formless sludge repeatedly so that each exhibition is repetitious There are additions, adornments, pieces that are picked up along the way, like rolling a piece

of Velcro across a long stretch of carpet Hypothetically, the Velcro would pick up different types of dirt embedded within the carpet, depending on the bodies that have occupied the space and where these bodies have previously visited prior to standing or sitting on the carpet

In real life, I was rummaging in the stationary section at Dimmey’s discount store, when a stain on the carpet caught my attention (see figure 6) Figure 6 shows the stained carpet which is comprised of glitter, debris, stickers and dried leaves have accumulated, held

together by the stickiness of flattened blu-tack This example demonstrates the materials intersecting each other to form an encounter that was unexpected and Other

Figure 7. (Left) Upcycled wood that has been reused in various projects from 2018-2021

Figure 8. (Right) Upcycled wood that has been reused in various projects from 2018-2021

An example of reconfiguration throughout the research period follows the life cycle of found wood, continuously jig sawed and re-fitted together The pieces of pine wood were initially used as joining devices (see above figure 7 and 8) These were fixed with hooks in order to suspend the artworks produced during my Honours degree in 2018 I created a provisional solution that functioned as a hanging rig This was an adaptive method to solve the problem

of a three-metre-high ceiling that no ladder would reach Most of the work developed that year consisted of adaptive problem-solving methods that responded to the constraints of each installation space I considered the site-specific fixtures within the installations as artworks in themselves Hand sawed and jig sawed, I cut these with the mental imagery of a digestive

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system suspended from the ceiling The works that were suspended by these hooks were suggestive of having ‘passed through’ the organ shaped structural pine, in motion These wooden organs later travelled through various other exhibitions They were remade and newly integrated with other works Evidence of prior histories could be seen in the texture, layers of paint, staples, drilled holes, shapes and hooks New versions formed iteratively in relation to varying spaces and times The wood was transformed from hanging devices to abstract forms and fences It also became site-specific skirting used to contain smaller

assemblages

Matter exceeds its singularity and fixedness, continuously generating the potential to be experienced differently each time that it is reconfigured and exhibited This approach extends invitation to the process of morphing, where matter moves, becoming void of singular

meaning because it follows the momentum and flow of multiple iterations Each time it is renewed, the materials are participating in the act of rethinking how it can be in order to evoke

new affects The reconstituted wood moves through different contexts and demonstrate that

matter can exceed itself and become multiple in terms of lifecycles and functions For me, this speaks to the potential for a singular material like wood to become more than what it is; fluid and changeable in form

On Multiplicity

I attribute multiplicity to be the potential of the material and its capacity to exceed singularity Here I speak of exceeding singularity in relation to matter being more than what it appears to be; becoming more than how it is culturally defined or recognised Judith Butler (2005) writes

in her text Giving an Account of Oneself, ‘There is a language that frames the encounter, and

embedded in that language a set of norms concerning what will and will not constitute

recognisability’ (2005, p.23) In my practice, recognisability is disrupted through moving matter through various cycles of processing and regenerating matter and sourcing organic materials through encountering and combining them into assemblages resembling miniature embodied spaces where insects might live My practice considers the responsible use of materials in terms of what I consume and the lifecycles of matter, both temporally and

iteratively

Matter can exceed itself, becoming more than how it is culturally defined as a singular

material, definition or function in its relation to humans In the studio, an object can function

as a painting, a support structure or a storage device; a keychain can exist as a singular work

or it can attach to something else In the context of my art installation practice, each sculptural assemblage integrates into a larger overall installation Through contextual shifts; it is at once

singular and multiple I consider these non-singular singular materials to be ever-changing transitory matter, which are activated through installation processes such as hanging,

attaching, joining, leaning or precariously balancing Material always has the potential to reform and take on new life For example, in the studio I selectively save remains of the failed rice paper roll experiment (see figure 2, page 13) When these remains are reused in

combination with other matter in new works, it transforms into a hybrid of what it once was, by accumulating a material history of traces like in the Dimmey’s carpet encounter (see figure 6, page 18)

Singularity can also be thought of in relation to my preconceived ideas around subjective agency It is the singular human subject (me) speaking singular intention, as the singular author of what I produce Becoming Other, or multiple is considered what is other than what one knows; beyond one’s human ‘self’ (this is discussed on page 36) Multiplicity seeks to decentralise the human position (my singular subjectivity) in-relation-to matter, materials and environments This leads me to ask; how do I facilitate dialogue around artwork without furthering the erosion of agency attributed to matter and materials through the orchestration

of human interventions? In allowing the material to ‘speak’ I still wield human agency when matter ‘speaks’ in the context of presenting it as art within an exhibition context This means that the materialism of the material is always tailored for the purpose of human

understanding Moving towards more non-hierarchical understandings of the human relation

to other matter is not necessarily void of hierarchy The research accounts for slight shifts in relations through collaborative works made as an exchange between me and a number of forces This takes focus away from my subjectivity and works towards understanding relations outside of a human-centred ontology.Matter, materials and my environments are regarded as collaborators in my life and studio practice I am not trying to represent anything specific through any one medium, but instead fiddle with the findings and language of my

surroundings, to see what might emerge

Linking this back to my practice, the accumulated matter in my studio develops out of

collectedmaterial resonances that hold the possibility to continuously become (Grosz 2010) and linger in unexpected configurations with other matter This is a vitality that flows across all living bodies; ‘an impersonal kind of agency’ (Bennett 2001) In the studio, this manifests as

an aimless fiddling that doesn’t seek to represent any premeditated outcome The speculative forms that emerge are considered propositional and are intended to be read as shifts in relations across matter These shifts seek to alter how we culturally understand familiar materials These unforeseeable engagements with materials locate the human as a relation within a set of relations, which seeks to find connections without asserting dominance but

being held within to learn

‘the future is cockroach’ through rethinking the notion of the human through the agency of cockroaches by storytelling a symbiotic mutualism (Tontey 2019) She asks;

What kind of knowledge can humans generate from the cockroach’s world-building and its historicity? How do we build a sustainable future for multispecies interaction? Here I attempt to see the cockroach as a case study, turning what is considered a pest into powerful knowledge in a form of novel approach to science-fictioning (Tontey 2019, para 3)

In the space I inhabit and create through making, assembling and reconfiguring, I want to unlearn the idea that the formation of subjectivity seeks affirmation through stabilised/fixed identity Instead, the subject is ever developing in content and form; being and becoming a body in relation to other bodies of matter that are also being/becoming It is through

continuity, durational reforming and being in dialogue with external forces at play that new understandings of self and subject emerge Through reconfigurations of morphosis,

subject/subjectivity as matter (and myself as matter) undergoes flux of multiple becoming through processes of constant transformation (Braidotti 1994, p.111) In an exhibition context, this is through various iterations Through becoming multiple, subjectivity is redefined into rhizomatic subjectivities beyond any prescriptive fixed identity that exists within

anthropocentric constructs Multiplicity does not produce one single model but multiplies differences; it is a non-linear formation Rethinking the role of subjectivity allows my

installations and the way they are encountered to linger in an associative open-endedness; there are no singular interpretations When installing within a gallery setting, I set up

meandering passageways that lead to punctuations of material assemblages These follow associative and tangential rhizomes that are often surprising, however, there is an internal logic to the character of the overall installations in their material combinations In my

morphing sculptural and installation practice, the singular to multiple is enacted through matter morphing that exceeds cultural definition My sculptural and installation practice is a

2 Separating nature/culture, self/other, internal/external, subject/object

collaborative enactment of decentering the self through posthuman material engagements

‘Multiple impersonal forces’ form through ‘coordinations’ (Gan and Tsing 2019), intuition, pottering and conditionality These are further morphed through the playful and unfolding conditions of a site-specific installation practice

Site-Specific Installation Practice and Affective Potential

The experience of encounters that cannot be attributed to fixed verbal expression might be likened to what Greg Seigworth describes as ‘subtle shuttling intensities’ (Seigworth 2010, p.1), which alludes to the experience of affects’ potency I imagine ‘subtle shuttling intensities’

in my work as the site-specific element to my installation practice In a similar vein to how the works in my studio are formed, my installation processes are responsive to the particulars of the site The work adapts, reforms and shifts each time it is installed in a different space In the lead up to installing work I am equipped with a surplus of what I have made in my studio and collected from my surroundings I consider these to be matter and/or materials (rather than resolved works) which then constitute the installation This can be likened to the model

of an ecosystem, where the contributing roles of organisms in their environments are very specific types of symbiotic mutualisms

In ‘pottering’ (see page 9) I likened my interaction with materials in the studio to a series of dopamine hits or an adrenaline rush, the picking up of pace or simply a pottering around and fiddling with things This entails a slow, unfocused production, which engages an interchange

of affects between the materials and me When installing, I imagine how bodies might move through the space and engage in their viewing processes I consider how the encounter with the installation can generate experiential responses at the level of the collective (installation) and the specific (individual artwork) The intimate, micro details within the sprawling

installations open up into unknown speculative landscapes and subliminal portals to

elsewhere Engaging with these micro portals build a form of knowledge through making These details function as the subtle affects, the shuttling intensities that are not one but many and varied, in the hope of altering our perceptive tendencies I try to evoke a sense

world-of growth, where I imagine the space inhaling and exhaling and through this, deepening and expanding This aims to navigate what can inhabit the space without the feeling of

claustrophobia This means that matter brought into the install often remains unused These are reconfigured into new work later on

My installation process seeks to find a balance of visual information in order to create a subtle, hinting, affective reverberations This considers how to use space in an embodied way, through installation methods that use not only the walls and the floor, but also spaces

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that extend beyond the room at eye level This includes site-specific responses to ceiling beams, the bathroom, behind wall partitions, or using pre-existing holes and hooks leftover from previous projects, exhibitors or ecological friends (spiders, moths, flies, earwigs) The affective reverberations I speak of reference a Spinozian notion3 cited by Brian Massumi:

When you affect something, you are at the same time opening yourself up to being affected in turn, and in a slightly different way than you might have been before …you have stepped over a threshold Affect is this passing of a threshold, seen from the point of view of the change in capacity (2002, p.106)

Affect is a double-sided coin – a body that is affected is in turn affecting other bodies

(Spinoza cited in Massumi, 2002) One side of the affect coin is being affected by matter

when art making, encountering materials and installing work The other side of the affect coin applies to how the reformation and installation of matter is encountered by the viewer in the gallery context In an exhibition context, the gallery acts as a host space to house the

experience of the transformative (a)effects of becoming Other Upon entering a space, viewers are transported elsewhere to a site of suspension in meaning, encapsulated by or overwhelmed by the material; it has a transformative affect that makes the installation a site

of potential By potential, I mean that it gives the space capacity for a body to be altered through experiencing material language and material experience in relation to their lived

experiences, evoking an empathy or an in-relation-to something that is other than human

In all the spaces I activate with materials, my intentions are to evoke an overall ungraspable, affective response Embedded within these installations there are micro details that seek to magnify the viewer’s affective resonances, asking for a more intimate engagement An example of this can be demonstrated when I’ve previously looked at a drawing that is part of

a larger installation I became absorbed and entered into a detailed drawing, so much that my body forgot awareness of its scale and containment When I looked away from the drawing,

my surroundings were larger, embodied installation of works The shift in scales has caused disorientation and an overstimulated feeling Heightened sensitivities occur through close examination of smaller details within sculptural matter Within these discrete layers of install, where close inspection is often required, multiplicity of meaning is offered for each viewer’s subjective encounter as there is no prescribed way of encountering sprawling installations.I have previously observed in my installations that viewers are enchanted through an

immersion in matter This immersion has been described as fantastical and at times

otherworldly, but viewers have not been able to comprehend specific descriptive language

3 A Spinozian notion of affect references the body as affecting and being affected These are intertwined rather than separate capacities (Spinoza cited by Massumi 2002)

around the elements that cause this - there is an uncertainty in knowing how to account for perception Things that stimulate affective responses are also not quite transmissible through verbal language; from my experiences, what is felt lingers in a zone that is difficult to locate in clear definition Art in its natural embodiment will always exceed and collapse any linguistic framework Art is naturally resistant to language; it is a knowledge and language in itself.4Concerned with the pure possibility of being, experiencing, apprehending and understanding, its irreducibility means it cannot be a formula or strategy, already exceeding whatever

function might be assigned to it; it is as such excessively dysfunctional (Sharp 2017) This failure of language reaffirms that the work simply exists as an encounter amongst relations –

it is intended as speculative and propositional in the sense that it is a vessel for prompting a contemplation about our relations to matter

For the eternal return boulevard with Audrey Tan, the works exhibited resulted from

collectively ingesting and collecting organic matter These acts of collaboratively sitting, collecting, eating and remaking to form artworks were slow and incremental processes that formed over two years of accumulation We created temporary, provisional site-specific works from these transformed materials The works were literally held in place by their wax cast fixtures and skirting trays filled with sand These fixtures were considered part of the

exhibition installation The accompanying text reads:

Chewing very slowly, with each turn we are led to cul-de-sacs resemblant of wheels, citrus fruits, varying fractions of pie charts, lily pads, clocks with fragmented time

hand washed clothes drip drying / forming puddles in sloped concrete, a garden potion of baby unripe lemon, lemon leaf, red pepper berries and lantana

excavating gravel from the council land to hammer and polish into gems with a used toothbrush

the bulbs of pink flowers echoing onion bulbs

fermenting fruit salad sunset

decorative mound of crystallised wet sand, balancing on a teaspoon and garnished with lemon rind peeled using your fingernail

We collect our trimmed hair and sew the remnants into miniature hats

Placing them on the windowsill to collect our shed skin cells

The inclusion of this text sought to function as an associative device to prompt material resonances with viewers This was to evoke an estranged sense of familiarity echoed in the partnership of descriptions with playful material language In an exhibition context, the

installations and assemblages facilitate viewer subjectivity through their engagement with materials This is not an uncommon entry point to interpreting and experiencing artwork – the

inclusion of multiple entry points through materials create portals, which enable speculation

for drawing upon associations that are uncertain and unknowable to my own associative projections Viewer speculation opens the work to the possibilities of meaning as it is derived from subjectivities beyond my own It also carves space for spontaneous generative thinking

4Whilst in the field of art, many artworks do contain and respond didactically to language through text and dialogue, here I am explicitly referring to artworks which follow and uncover knowledge through their materialisms

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and playful associations It is through unknowing and uncertainty that the possibility for new knowledge can be generated through the combination of human and nonhuman subjectivities The next chapter addresses this formation of new knowing as an ethics of affective and material potential, through its capacity to alter our perception

Chapter Two: Morphosis as an Ethico-Political Methodology

The morphosis methodology is driven by the experience of ecological grief in the context of accelerated ecological collapse and climate change My methodological approaches

metabolise feelings of anxiety, loss, hopelessness and distress; in response to these feelings,

I set limitations on how I source materials and produce within art practice in an attempt to hold myself accountable for my footprint which expresses an ethical concern relating to the sustainable use and sourcing of materials I use ‘reconfiguration’ as outlined in Chapter One (p.17-18) to demonstrate how materials are pushed into embodying as many forms as

possible through continuous remaking ‘Material Kinship’, a concept developed by artist Clementine Edwards (2019) prompts me to consider relational exchanges in future material encounters by engaging with a state of alterity through nonhuman entities in art making (Cheah 2008) I connect ideas of Otherness and possibility to new materialist ‘potential’ which engages with affect and feeling Through unfamiliar material and spatial encounters,

slippages in representation then propose the generation of new knowledge Enacting an artistic methodology that incorporates political and ethical concerns may be considered futile

in achieving any form of activism other than on an individual, localised level However, it is necessary in art making to consider how we engage with and move forward in the world as makers and think about our role in the world as humans By engaging with the unknown, a small shift occurs in being affected and open in responding to and learning about the

environments which hold our human world in place This questions our role within nonhuman worlds and equally, seeks to decentre anthropocentric ways of knowing and being amongst nonhuman subjects

Ethics of Morphosis

The ethics of morphosis is concerned with sustainability This means being accountable for how I source, reuse or dispose of materials as well as create material outputs Introducing sustainability into arts practice falls under ethics as it seeks to develop awareness around the recognition that humans are a part of a broader network of connections and life forces This means enacting an understanding that resources do not solely exist for human consumption, and like humans, are not infinite

Working compulsively always come as second nature to me I have previously regarded it as something that is limitless and without constraints but found that the material outputs of this approach are ultimately wasteful Rather than compulsively making, which is how I have previously produced work, this research explores how intuitive making processes can be

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accountable within the broader context of accelerated ecological collapse Consequently, this inclination for accountability has formed from anxiety and guilt, symptomatic of ecological grief (Cunsolo and Ellis 2018) Despite recognising that my singular existence is not the crux

of the issues contributing to ecological degradation, this accountability speaks to a

manifestation of care in response to the potential loss of environmental futures It asks on an individual level, what is my obligation to the natural systems that hold me in place?

Emanuele Coccia writes that the discourse of art aims to liberate the capability of

metamorphosis inherent in each thing (2019)

To be in the world means always becoming the pace of a concoction, a

crossbreeding of elements and objects that conspire to transform the nature of the world…In a radically animist world, nothing is born, nothing dies, but everything is transformed Metamorphosis is everything that happens (Coccia 2019, para 6)

Coccia (2019) supposes that the Anthropocene is not only the human traces imprinted on the world The reverse side of this entails the human world ingesting itself to become no longer a sphere made and built to accommodate human thought The eventual self-ingestion, or

‘mineralising’ of the Anthropocene reveals the inseparability of geology, rock and millions of nonhuman species ‘Mineralising’ (Coccia 2019) emerges in direct context of the climate change emergency and bushfire crisis occurring each dry season across the colonised continent that we call ‘Australia’ Continued lack of action towards climate change5

demonstrates the deeper structural issues of self-preserving neo-liberal-colonial government and an absence of support of Indigenous Sovereignty in the part of the world that we occupy The impacts of this are wide-reaching cultural devastation with the loss of unceded

Indigenous land, sacred sites and native flora and fauna verging on extinction This broader context, perhaps a kiss from the apocalypse (if I am momentarily able to indulge a feeling of hopelessness) is motivation for generating a more sustainable practice and being

accountable for the content I produce as an artist This entails self-imposing limitations towards the use of materials; it is an ethic that enforces the constraints of material

consumption This means reducing the usage of materials that are store bought in order to minimise my ongoing contributions to landfill waste that can result from material

experimentation

5 This is based on Scott Morrison’s Liberal Government lack of policy towards reducing carbon emissions, the overall dismissal of the urgency of climate change action at the Pacific Islands Forum in October 2019, the downplaying the seriousness of 19.4 million hectares of burnt area nationwide (as at 24/1/20) See:

the-east-coast-of-australia-interactive-map/24-1-20/

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-interactive/2019/dec/07/how-big-are-the-fires-burning-on-Weighing heavy on my conscience in the midst of the Anthropocene is the production aspect

of art practice, which endlessly feeds capital by producing commodities through the use of newly purchased materials (that further feeds capital) Within me lies a strong desire to develop a sustainable practice where I can be accountable for my material output and waste through introducing self-imposed constraints on what is produced and what materials I will use to experiment with The constraints are concerned with how materials are sourced, used and disposed of, or made functional once they are exhibited as artworks Imposing

constraints means initially working within a set a of collected, found or reused materials and resisting novelty or decorative craft and building materials, which have previously seduced my magnetic attraction to craft such as sparkly grout, plastic, sequins and beads It means avoiding the impulsive purchasing of materials to work with what I already have, and what can eventually dissipate into the ground This introduces a much slower process of production that attempts to minimise material consumption in my art practice, for example; I have been collecting matter that remains from what I ingest since 2019 This has produced a surplus of organic material to be reformed in the studio: dried pumpkin stems, cherry pits, corn cobs, mandarin seeds, dried edamame bean skins, eggshells and twigs

Concurrent to my practice, artist Clementine Edwards recognises that we are situated within ecological collapse, but alternately proposes an ongoing approach of ‘material kinship’

(Edwards 2019) This embraces what we are already surrounded by in the Anthropocene, of our embodiment and lived histories with materials ‘Material Kinship’ (Edwards 2019) is interested in the queer possibilities of making kin beyond any biological or normative family model (2019) The sole use of various forms of repurposed plastic in Edwards’ exhibition

‘Sweetheart’ (October 2019) at Roodkapje Rotterdam considered the material as plural: as toxic, enduring, human made but nonhuman offspring I interpret ‘material kinship’ as the desire to think, feel and be in-relation-to nonhuman entities that we produce and are in turn shaped by Her work underlines the ever presence of plastics in the ocean, in our bodies, in the food we ingest, in the ground as familial as it is born from anthropocentric purpose, yet the relation is Other than ourselves

Edwards (2019) micro-scale material configurations are continuously becoming; although they are fixed in an exhibition context here, they will move on to be reassembled In a

nuanced way, which resonates with my material approaches, Edwards’ reuse and

reassemblage of material kin into multiple processes of transformation speaks to a new materialist sentiment of possibility ‘Material Kinship’ (Edwards 2019) develops the idea that matter, whether organic or inorganic, is part of as well as often produced by humans; they are our offspring but also our predecessors The concept for me suggests a relational

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metabolising of the ‘self’ in conjunction with materials and matter This pushes the research into posthuman territory and whilst the output itself cannot claim to be free of my artistic determination, it instills an awareness towards how I am bound to my humanness and

humanist projections These might slightly shift through my engagements with materials; enacting a reconstruction of thought processes

In Chapter One, I discussed my research into encountering and engaging with Other material agencies My inquiry was to how they speak or behave due to their inherent qualities My works often became over determined by my agency and the internal dialogue I had projected onto materials These material engagements held propositional thoughts, which revealed an increased awareness in my practice towards adaptation and working in a responsive manner The knowledge which these experiments uncovered were conversational exchanges between myself and the material; leading me to think about how to speak alongside material agencies

In my research into collaborating with Other agencies outside of my own, I came to conceive

of collaboration as a shift in how I considered my role in relation to the entities surrounding

me – through forms of engagement such as being-with and paying attention to nonhuman materials and behaviours This was concerned with how I adapt to the things around me, a form of becoming accommodating or hospitable to a sense of Otherness

A kinship, like Edwards’ (2019) ‘material kinship’, might be considered as a mutual relational agency, a consideration of oneself in-relation-to other matter; a posthuman collaborative exchange Collaboration can be speculated upon as an openness towards difference and

alterity In Non-Dialectical Materialism (2008), Pheng Cheah writes about how states of

alterity can never be experienced or known because it is outside of ourselves – it is what we

do not identify with It is what we cannot know in our being because it unsettles us through

‘radical contamination’ of what we do not know (2008, p.146) Alterity is understood and defined through the figure of the unforeseeable and unknowable, yet it is what frames our

canonical understanding of power and action because it is formulated in response to what we

are not This framework of power, which is driven by self-mastery, characterises otherness as

vulnerable and defenseless (Cheah 2008)

Cheah suggests that re-formulating frameworks of power, which unconditionally open up power to the other (and undoes the power of the subject) might be explored through the force

of materiality This hospitality to the other demands a response that ‘we calculate with given conditions in order to act in a responsible manner’ (Cheah 2008) In my posthuman

morphosis methodology, accountability through considering sustainability and the impacts of

my production processes on the vitality of other matter is implemented to prompt a more

ethical and relational engagement with nonhuman entities The outcomes that emerge are unforeseeable because they constitute a play of relations outside of what is

anthropocentrically familiar This is intrinsically linked to a micro-politics which questions and seeks to decentre the dominance of human ways of knowing and being through reconsidering how we understand nonhuman matter Morphosis within the context of my studio-based practice is a slow dissolution of hierarchical knowing

Potential is Political

Throughout my research, I interchanged the concept of possibility with ‘potentiality’ as I learned that the generation of new knowledge occurred through a material potential and affective potential Potentiality is an engagement with uncertainty (Cocker 2013); it also has the capacity to challenge what exists outside of dualistic thinking in its exploration and

momentum of possibility (Grosz 2011, p.66, Barad 2008, p.182) The concept of potentiality enacts a politic; it challenges pre-existing ways of knowing through enabling new, and

sometimes verbally unclassifiable understandings to emerge from pre-existing knowledge From my understanding of feminist new materialism, the subject seeks to build alternate pathways from pre-existing dominant (typically hetero-patriarchal) knowledge structures to move from the position of a minority to that which asserts agency through what we create; through collectivity but which at first must come from a micro-actant of the self This is at first built through knowledge and understandings which move from ingrained ways of reading the world materially and relationally; through feeling, intuition and perceiving It means

envisioning new possibilities from what is already amongst us to produce uncertain, affective understandings of being in the world which are felt, nuanced capacities born from the lived experiences of being a body in the world that is a supporting character (not the main

character) in a euro-centric hetero-patriarchal narrative

Suely Rolnik writes in her text The Geopolitics of Pimping (2006) that however it manifests,

we think/create new possibilities because we are moved to by something inherent in our daily lives; it is a ‘sensible mutation’ (p.1) that is seeking passage Art as a mode of thought

production reconfigures the worlds landscape because of the specificities that constitute it; there is a ‘sensible texture’ (2006, p.1) embodied in artistic action that lives on through the work Hence art is potentially loaded with the power of contagion and transformation

My approach of morphosis alters the way in that materials are commonly perceived through

an experimentation of the potential of non-traditional sculptural materials This includes food, food waste, found matter and churning wood Reconfiguration is a key component of my morphosis methodology which responds to this ethic of sustainability Through reusing materials from multiple projects by deconstructing and reconstructing matter continuously,

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new forms are adapted until they assume a zombie-like character through their

additions/extensions In Chapter One, I likened this method to ‘life-extending breadcrumbs’ This term arose when I was working at a commercial bakery Part of their budget-cutting involved adding breadcrumbs to the ingredients of which filled their pastries This

was to minimise the cost spent on more expensive ingredients in the production process The ‘life-extending breadcrumb’ method, when applied to the context of matter, undergoes so many modifications that its agency is no longer really there It begins to act in accordance with what newly constitutes its body, its body changes entirely, becoming an assemblage, or forming through a set of additions For example; the morphing wood (see figure 7 and 8, p.20)

no longer has any structural integrity once it has reached its capacity to be reconfigured, because it has been cut and stapled or drilled together so many times Any structure which it forms takes on a very precarious nature because it is comprised of many small units/blocks of wood stapled gunned together, which causes it to slump in one direction lethargically, unable

to function as when it was a length of structural pine placed next to the bin to be disposed of

It has been pushed as far as it can go in terms of being reconfigured or restructured, and in this process of continuously being remade, it becomes something Other

The materials move through continuous cycles of being made and becoming broken, then repaired or reintegrated until what once was is no longer replicated The iterations of the work through various spaces incorporate a rule of regeneration of the old into the new (as outlined through morphosis) Each time these are significantly altered, producing differences in what is physically present as well as what is affectively produced This is dependent on the sites that the works embody It is an enactment of new materialist theory, as it is similarly concerned with the reinvention of living in the world through allowing potential for Otherness to emerge (Braidotti 1994) The enactment of a potential does not translate into what can be immediately identifiable visually Instead, it is through an experimentation with non-traditional materials that contribute to a loss of translation, which allows new language to form I believe that a slippage from material language to verbal language is what constitutes morphosis My

approach to handling material is intimate, responsive and ongoing It is the ongoing nature of the work along with my bodies interaction with its surroundings that makes it unforeseeable in what it eventually physically represents or is experienced as

Figure 9. Longan Taxi Seat Macrame Longan seed beads, dried lemons, dog collar and my hair from 2016-2019

Brian Massumi (2003) proposes that freedom isn’t necessarily about an escape from or breaking away, because there are always constraints that are present In relation to the dissolution of dualisms, this is understood as embracing the capacity for change by allowing the potential for differences to co-exist; it undoes divisions, which enables new transitions to

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occur When we (humans) walk, there’s gravity, balance, and equilibrium presenting

themselves as constraints, but you need to move forward by playing with the constraints rather than avoiding them, because nobody can escape gravity (2003) He discusses ‘walking

as controlled falling’ (Massumi 2003, p.10) as a freedom that is not external to but within what

we seek freedom from This can be sought through experimentation with alternative ways of being/knowing/feeling through reaching out to other relations Within my art practice, this is enacted through how I am affected through material accumulation and experimentation; and

in response how this is affectively encountered through installation practice Part of the morphosis in figure 9, is that any attempt to represent something in particular, in this case a taxi driver seat, will always slip into becoming something else through the process of

attempting to represent The affective capacity runs its course through the viewer

experiencing what cannot be grasped and what is not disclosed through representation Suely

Rolnik describes this ambiguity in her text The Geopolitics of Pimping (2006) as the

‘subcortical capacity of perception’, which similarly allows us to apprehend the world through

a field of affects and sensations This is disengaged from comprehension, ‘between the capacity of our body to resonate and its capacity of perception there is a paradoxical relation, for these are modes of apprehending reality that work according to totally distinct logics, irreducible to each other.’ (2006, p.2) It is the tension of this irreducibility which strengthens the potential of [artwork], because a mutation has occurred to what we know through what is not transmittable by our available representations (2006) This intervention of re-establishing the subject-object in relation to each other is the process of transformative potential

My installations propose a temporary alternative way of being (Massumi 2003) through offering unfamiliar material and spatial encounters I’m thinking of the body as an interface, an interactive and responsive vessel rather than as a vehicle that is controlled In my installations human bodies are receptive to the peculiar organic smells of decay from an accumulation of repaired and repurposed fruit and vegetable exoskeletons A sensory overload might be symptomatic of experiencing something that is not familiar and thus one’s perception is thrown off, becoming open to the radicalisation of Otherness and exteriority (Cheah 2008) There are multiple entrances and exit points to my installations in interpretation and

encounter through the processes and ethical inclinations that a morphosis methodology incorporates This multiplicity in meaning and becoming, which has so far been expanded upon overlaps with new materialist and posthuman ideas of becoming Other, framed by Karen Barad’s ‘intra-actions’ (2007) and ‘diffractive methodology’ (2007) and Rosi Braidotti’s

‘Nomadic Subject’ (1994) in the next chapter