REFLECTION
The Intraplaces elective offered an opportunity to expand my research, which investigates the agential and intra-active relationality between objects and humans and Becoming with more-than-human bodies, into incorporating space and place as co-agential entities participating and affecting the encounters of humans and more-than-humans. The spatial practice of walking has been an interesting way to engage with the non-human entities of space, place and objects, and the perceptive encountering that occurs in the interrelated nature of these entities. My explorations began during the workshop week, with two tasks that resonated the most for me. The first task, prompted me to map domestic journeys where I was interested in the ritualistic movement of cleaning and sweeping my room and how these movements in the private space are motivated by objects and the place they inhabit. This reflected my interest in the practice of cleaning as, seemingly, an act of care and ordering while also revealing its problematic action of domination and domestication of objects. The second task was to go for a walk in the city and document objects or things that fascinate me and catch my attention. During this task, the phenomena of non-locality (according to Harman’s OOO, the entanglement and affective communication between two or more bodies) and self-organisation of objects found in public space stood out to me. Self-organization, as mentioned by Jane Bennett in Vibrant Matter (2009), relates to the call of things and how objects form and perform as they exercise their agency and express their innate vitality as they pull or call out to the perceiver, in this case I, the walker. The final work takes these two interests further by exploring and working with the paradox of spontaneous self-organisation of objects vs intentional disorganisation (human act), public space vs private space, care vs carelessness, with a common thread of the perceptual and spatial practice of walking and production of place, and simultaneously the place of objects. The documentation of this practice is then placed in the virtual space, which explores the juxtaposition and blending of these ideas to create a third poetic and perceptual place.
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The two tasks raised many questions and concerns that worked in tandem as well as in contradiction to one another. This tension was an interesting energy to work with as it gave me the space to approach the two ideas as separate (yet not) embodied relational practices that then intra-act with one another virtually to form a third relation. Referring to De Certeau’s notion of ‘space as a practiced place’ and ‘place as an ordered and ordering system realised in spatial practices’ (1984,117), I was interested in the spatial practice of walking in private and public space as a way to perceive objects and their place, and to observe the change in relations that emerge. The practice of documenting self-organised objects that called out to me on the street and the practice of disordering or disorganising objects in my home, was driven by Anthony Gidden’s structuration theory that states, ‘spaces are the outcome of action’. I was interested in how social agents and more-than-human agents intra-act to create the self-organised place of objects in public, as humans discard these objects while walking. Similarly, the process of ordering the home also stems from the embodied spatial practice of walking from one point to another. With further contemplation and feedback from the tutorials, the work was channelized and motivated by three key questions that shaped my process and strategy of operating. My focus questions, addressed through the work, were: how can self-organisation and disorganisation change the relation with space and objects? ; how can the paradox of self-organising of objects in public space and intentional disorganisation or disordering of objects in private space be juxtaposed to create a third formation, assemblage and perceptual space?; can the object be the ‘sign’ or material through which a room, public and/or virtual space is read?
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Inspired from the first task that dealt with my need for cleaning as an act of care and ordering I wanted to subvert and thus undo my act of domestication of objects through actively disrupting the order of objects in my home (private space). The notions of control, autonomy and care were challenged through this strategy of disruption, and instead led to the emergence of the vitality of dis-placed objects that affected the way I related to and moved in the parts of my home that I inhabit every day. The second aspect of the process was taking forward the perception of the call of things on the street and documenting their self-organised forms. These objects affected the way I moved in public space, sometimes causing me to halt suddenly or cause changes in my attention, physical and emotional state. In both the practices, the relation to space, object and my body were processual in nature, and the objects per/formed a visual and spatial absurdity. The documentation of these practices from the spatial grid of the street and home enter the virtual grid of the screen where the images come in relation to each other, some overlapping with varying opacities, and juxtaposed to create different forms, shapes, interpretations, affects. Inspired by Paul Connerton’s idea of the ‘grid onto which images of the items to be remembered are placed in a certain order’ (2009, 5), I explore the virtual grid as a way for the public and private grid to meet, where my embodied and visual practice of arranging, re-arranging and editing manifests the emergence of hybrid images, memories and interpretations through the mental act of remembering, imagining and reviewing the assemblages that are organised yet disorganised, placed and dis-placed (creating new formations and perceptions) to give rise to hybrid readings of these spaces and places inhabited by the objects.
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To conclude, I am interested in taking the self-organisation of objects to illustrate the vitality of matter and I am very keen on incorporating space as a non-human element that plays a key role in the intra-action between different bodies. Merleau-Ponty’s quote, ‘Our perceptual space is made up of ‘things’ and spaces between ‘things’ (1945, 18) resonates with my research that is interested in expanding human subjectivity to be more porous and fluid. The incorporation of space as a non-human body that is essential in the formation of perception and relation between objects and humans can also then be relegated to the formation of perception that takes place inwardly, and the constantly shifting subject-object positions that can then aid in my explorations of becoming-with bodies more-than-human.