Embodiment, 2019-2020. (Submission)

Part 3. Whitecliffe MFA Program. 2019-20. (Seminar 5. 8 – 13-2-20.)

Embodiment – 2019-2020.

Works:

1. Used Tool. The boat almost sank when we brought it down the coast on 15-6-2019. “This tool saved us.”

Series of six digitally printed photographs (Documentation by Harry Hall), chromed wrench with black silicone, text on paper. 

2. Four Stroke 4HP SAIL. “The need to return a borrowed outboard motor led to the acquisition of this 4hp ‘SAIL’ motor. George Redmond agreed to support this acquisition through the purchase of a collection of archived ceramic works for $400. “This support paid for the motor.”

Series of two digitally printed photographs, Four stroke outboard motor on wood stand, series of twelve digitally printed photographs (Documentation by Monica Wooff), text on paper.

3. G.B’s Cameras. Months ago the realisation of who he was allowed several verbal exchanges to occur. He said he would leave them in a plastic bag on the boat. I’ve since thanked him and we’ve talked further. “This plastic bag is now used to collect sawdust.”

Plastic bag with sawdust, camera bag (Contains two cameras, two rolls of unused film, user’s manual, and Gary’s instructive note), digitally printed photograph, text on paper. 

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Being present together within a shifting intertidal mudflat a community exists. Reciprocity lingers. An understanding of potential outcome is given form through the process of engagement with a moment.

The objects presented in these two spaces exist as embodied moments. The narrative present within these mereological objects can be understood and argued as dynamic, within the notion of Gottfried Leibniz’s ‘Dynamism,’ describable matter existing as the result of exterior force. Explained by Jeffrey Edwards as “…the basis of the identity of any particular [object] through the alterations that it undergoes as the result of its interactions with other [objects].”(1) This makes apparent that any object embodies shared and unique moments of existence due to intrinsic forces outside of itself. This sets a tone for asserting there is will(2) in the force that then defines the object at hand, and in this case a focus on narrative is able to begin based on engagement with an object. 

The continual process of becoming focuses on the dynamics within the context of the intertidal mudflat of Opoututeka, known as Cox Bay / Cox’s Bay. This peripheral site is made up of parts, the tidal cycle, the boats on moorings, the tools, the individuals, each hold place in an overarching narrative. 

Edwards, Jeffrey. (2000). “Leibniz’s Aristotelian Dynamism and the Idea of a Transition from Metaphysics to Corporeal Nature”. Substance, Force, and the Possibility of Knowledge: On Kant’s Philosophy of Material Nature. Berkeley, University of California Press. 66–67.

Zuboff, Shoshana. (2019). “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.” London / New York, Profile Books / Public Affairs. 328-337.