An Intricate Ensemble: the Art-Science of an Ecological Imaginary

On Monday morning I will be defending my thesis for Rhode Island School of Design's brand new MA program in Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies alongside four other women who have been part of this inaugural cohort.

For those interested...my paper is basically a manifesto, a call to develop and deploy all manner of creative tactics that can challenge and subvert any and all "logics" that allow for exploitation, oppression, and destruction of the Earth and its inhabitants.

It's about undoing undue dualism and the joy of paradox. I plan to post the whole project on-line as soon as possible. The thesis is now available in its entirety at RISD Digital Commons. Meanwhile, here is a short summary:

AN INTRICATE ENSEMBLE: THE ART-SCIENCE OF AN ECOLOGICAL IMAGINARY FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE EPOCH

Some early-to-mid-20th century avant-garde artistic movements, notably Dadaism and Surrealism, came out of a wholesale rejection of a “logic” based in European Enlightenment philosophy that could result not only in the slaughter of billions during World War I, but in the destruction and enslavement of people and the other-than-human world in the name of a “progress” from which the most powerful disproportionately benefit. Declaring the right to determine what should be considered an acceptable reality, the Dadaists and Surrealists developed methods by which to tap into the “irrational” – techniques including collaboration, improvisation, and chance operations.

Approximately 200 years prior to the Surrealists, the Romantic Naturalists also expressed misgivings about the mechanistic, positivist, dualist modes of thought their countrymen had been bringing to prominence in Europe since the dawn of Scientific Revolution – humans (some far more than others) were coming to see themselves as separate from, and superior to, an externalized conception of “nature.” Science, heralded as an unbiased form of inquiry based on “natural” laws, was being used to justify hierarchy, competition, and exploitation. The Romantic Naturalists countered with the view that sustained appreciation of the qualitative does not diminish the value of the quantitative; in fact, sensations that transcend reason and logic may provide an ethical basis from which to develop fairer and more just social and ecological frameworks.

Today, in a spirit akin to that of the Romantic Naturalists, Dadaists, and Surrealists, paradigm-challenging artists and philosophers are working to bring about an “ecological imaginary”…the view that, to quote feminist-philosopher Karen Barad on the central lesson of quantum physicist Niels Bohr, "we are a part of the nature that we seek to understand." 

Work emerging from fields related to the Environmental Humanities invites science to examine a paradox inherent within itself: science’s esteemed objective stance, while undeniably useful as a mindset for the purposes of research, by distancing the observer from that which is being observed, tends to reinforce an impression that humans and nature are inherently separate.

While science can, and very often does, provide elegant evidence that “we are a part of the nature that we seek to understand,” supplementary qualitative practices may help to instill in its adherents a sense of what this feels like in practice; the arts are particularly well-equipped to foster experiences of the sublime. Vacillating between – or the simultaneous holding of – states of objectivity and subjectivity, individuality and collectivity, direction and improvisation – may be of use in the collaborative formation of an ecological imaginary, a constructive image of oikos, our shared home, regardless of one’s primary discipline.

Dualisms and paradoxes abound, but we do not need to remain bound to them. It is possible to imagine an “intricate ensemble” in which beings and/or constructs can exist as separate and together.

The Notational Shift at MUSAC

The Notational Shift exhibition opened at Spain's Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon on January 26, 2019 and runs until September 15, 2019.

It's truly an honor to have work in this wonderful exhibition of alternative forms of musical notation alongside so many friends and muses, including Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Barbara Held, Benton Bainbridge, and others.

10000 Things - Mass Recognition - Vernal Equinox 2019

Frottages, Providence River Oysters, 2019

In mid-February I received an invitation to participate in a project conceived by some friends on the west coast, including composer/sound artist Brenda Hutchinson (noted for, among much wonderful work, her Daily Bell Project).

This is the original call for participation:

Equinox: Emergency of Joy 

Bringing together the 10,000 Things to a moment of poise

How do we as artists recognize each other in community? What does this community do, in its union, and how? How may we rehearse our strengths so that we are ready to serve emergencies of grieving and celebration? 

The challenge at hand is for individual artists or teams of artists to generate ten thousand things each, and, as possible, to bring them together in a live encounter on the occasion of the Spring Equinox, gathering, balancing, and releasing them, at a focus on joy, recognizing an urgent need, born of compassion, for creative elation and expectancy during heavy and tangled times. 

MAKE TEN THOUSAND THINGS 

LET THEM GO 

MARCH 20^th, 2:58pm 

Sharing of the work throughout the day, as forms suggest 

Food to follow 

“Ten thousand” is rooted in the Buddhist concept of the ten thousand dharmas – an image for all observable reality. We are meant to recognize, and ultimately move through this reality, to a state of levity – a surpassing of fact, a merciful gaze on it, a move into light. 

We bring everyone together, with everything we have, and set our tens of ten thousands free at a given moment. The character of that moment is joy. Any moment realized by art is compound, we match vulnerability of change with precision of purpose (vibratory, sonic). Joy includes expectancy, and joyful expectancy is hope; hope is a kind of woundedness – admission not only of uncertainty, but also of a willingness to anticipate the good despite uncertainty. We gather to affirm a manifesto of joy in all its precarity.

This is my response:  

Invitation to a Week of Mass Recognition 

(or: A Mass of Mass Recognition. A Mass Recognition Mass)

13th century Japanese Buddhist philosopher Dogen wrote:

That the self advances 

And confirms ten thousand things 

Is called delusion 

That the ten thousand things 

Advance and confirm the self 

Is called enlightenment

A group including some Surrealists in mid-20th century Britain organized a peoples’ ethnography practice called Mass Observation Days; all were invited to record ordinary (or non-ordinary) events that occurred during an agreed-upon 24-hour period. 

Poet Allen Ginsberg advised, "Notice what you notice.” 

Upon noticing a thing, a dynamic relationship is formed. Whatever is observed becomes a known extension of the observer. Even science now agrees that there is no such thing as objective reality. (What we don't notice...ie: everything else...is an extension of the observer too...but that's another story...).

In other words: when we notice something, we recognize a part of our "self" in the "other"..but with this realization comes the awareness that there is no "self"...or "other".

A quick calculation reveals that there are approximately 10,000 minutes in a week. All are invited to participate in a "mass recognition” beginning on March 13, 2019 at 2:58pm, one week prior to the Vernal Equinox, and ending at the same time on March 20. On the evening of the Equinox, those in geographical proximity are invited to gather to share some of the things which you recognized (and in which you recognized yourself).

A very important part of this project is the in-person (ie: non-social media) aspect. Please be in touch if you would like to gather in Providence on the evening of the Equinox. Several artists and groups who are contributing to 10000 Things in this and other ways are planning to meet at a downtown location. More info TBA.