REFLECTION:
I see the universe as one bubbling organic soup of re-use with endless iteration and generation. For this project, I wanted to create a visual representation of this, pulling together sources that spoke to this and seemed to echo each other even without definitive, cited influence on each other. Jane Bennett’s essay, The Agency of Assemblages, served as my primary source. In it, she discusses the flaws of an anthropocentric concept of individual agency, instead arguing for agency to be viewed as the product of collective parts in orchestra with one another. This applies to everything from the ecosystems of our human bodies to the national electrical grid to the very material of the universe. The idea of charged particles producing these “agentic swarms” reminded me of soil composition and energy storage, in the way that decomposed bodies serve to fuel plant bodies, which in turn fuel the animal world. Accordingly, I chose to also incorporate an earthenware plate from 1661 which is painted with the words “You and I are earth.” At the same time, this pin by user ilegivel (¯﹃¯) لا أحد appeared on my Pinterest, and the grapefruit form’s mesmerizing, multiplying layers seemed like a perfect visual manifestation of this feeling. This led me to incorporating many of Bjork’s quotes (such as “I am grateful grapefruit”), which address this same feeling of expansive, generative beauty in the universe. Grapefruits reminded me of Yoko Ono’s book Grapefruit and the Fluxus art movement of the 1960s, which believed that life was art and could be manipulated to expose existence’s endless potential through sets of instructions called Fluxus scores. I therefore chose several scores from Grapefruit that deal with topics of following in the footsteps of others, the idea of Everywhere, and the concepts of iteration and repetition. Finally, for a graphic element, I incorporated Marcel Duchamp’s Bottle Rack, whose form echoes the peeled grapefruit pin, and whose belief that life is art waiting to be recontextualized echoes the Fluxus movement. All of this I collaged together into an assemblage of forms and words mirroring each other, all dealing with the generative potential and action of existence. Collage, as a medium of combination, felt fitting. The sources are curled up into slips that live like stamens within the belly of this grapefruit flower, spiraling out into the tangled body of text and image. I chose to line the inside chamber with fragmented parts of Bottle Rack, as its industrial appearance reminded me of structural roof joists – smaller parts holding up the whole. Shadows cast by Bottle Rack are also collaged onto some of the exterior petals, again reiterating form. Quotes from Jane Bennett, Bjork, and Yoko Ono are also repeated in different arrangements across the body of this flower.
I don’t think this is really a plagiarism. Yes, I copy word for word Bennett, Bjork, and Yoko Ono, and I copy the form of ilegivel’s ornamental grapefruit and the image of Duchamp’s Bottle Rack. However, credit is given to all of them, and through combining their words and images, they contextualize each other and create a different whole. These sources are pulled together and filtered through my own beliefs about existence and my interests in art, influenced by my life experiences and aesthetic sensibilities. Nothing comes from nowhere. We cannot exist without the soil, trees, air, water, and minerals, and when we die the decomposition of our bodies will fuel other bodies. The same goes for ideas – everything builds on what has come before, and what we make will be built upon by others. The iterations of existence are endless. This is what I hope my project gets at. My title is made of Jane Bennett’s words.
Sources:
- Bennett, Jane. “The Agency of Assemblages.” Vibrant Matter, Duke University Press, 2010, 20-38.
- Bjork in various interviews (1988 Icelandic national broadcast RÚV1, unidentified fan clip2, 1998 BRIT Awards acceptance speech3, 2004 interview with The Reykjavik Grapevine4)
- Creator unknown. 1661 Tin-glazed earthenware plate. Found in a London sewer. Now housed in the Museum of London.
- ilegivel (¯﹃¯) لا أحد, on Pinterest
- Marcel Duchamp’s Bottle Rack, 1914.
- Ono, Yoko. Grapefruit. Wunternuam Press, 1964.