Iteration #1

“How can you be an artist and not reflect the times.”

Nina Simone [1]

We are already nearly a quarter of a way into this century, and it feels like so much has happened. One could be forgiven for experiencing the fatigue that accompanies our new age. You wouldn’t be blamed for such a tired apathy. Such present times and the technologies that they harness already outpace our mental capacity by quite some speed. So, in our last year of the quarter mark, it would be best to keep on top of your “crisis stamina” because if you listen to the recent 2024 US election debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, there is still a century to be won. So, what can history teach us about such rhetoric that embodies coexistence as a competition? And more importantly, who won the last century? How do we measure such an event? Critically, if there are winners, then there are also losers. That's the occidental way, no? As you can see, there is no simple definition of what it means to consider our geo, socio, and environmental positions in a modern world, let alone who won. So, putting competition aside for later, in this discussion, let's primarily focus on history and if there is something we can see repeating itself in regard to what, ultimately, An Artist Learning the Cello: Performing Loss as a Radical Empathy is about, and the catastrophe it see’s us walking blindly into. Above (fig. 1) is what I call Iteration No.1. This was the first foray into an idea I formed around grief borne of the catastrophes so intrinsically linked to capitalism. But, the separation of us and the things we perceive as outside of ourselves, makes these catastrophes appear as objects, distinct and remote. It is this separation which is then dangerous in the way the phenomenon of catastrophe becomes easily outsourced. Therefore, we need to embody the catastrophe as ours and not something causal elsewhere. Feminist Post-Humanist and philosopher Rosi Braidotti, when referencing sociologist Ulrich Beck’s negative cosmopolitanism, highlights how we are the catastrophe.[2]

Film still. Iteration #16 Bodies of Water. The filmic documentation addresses a key gap in practice-based eco-critical methodologies by creating a reflexive space where form (the filmed performance) and content (the relationaland ecological ethics explored in the performance) are interwoven. This recursive engagement enacts what I call “Site Writing Through Silence”

Iteration #26. ***Shifting the Goalposts*** Film still - Filmed over Hackney Marshes, where we trample, and perforate the ground with studs, slides, and cutting. cropped and formed, nature is once again designed and utilised.

Iteration #22 ***Looming.*** Film still - Where the remnants of an industrial past lay before the backdrop of an unfolding urban time-scape. What is “becoming with” when the with is already here?

Iteration #25. ***We Came With No Voices.*** Film still - Silent yes, but who is listening, and do they even need to? Each time i step into a wilderness I am confronted with the politics of land. What rights, beyond trespass, do I have to perform here? Who benifits from this encounter? I am going to ask you to be my co-creator, my co-author. its only right.

Climate catastrophe is not something separate - like there is us, alone, and then catastrophe is about to happen to us. Causally, We-are-all-in-this-together, Braidotti reminds us so eloquently in her publication Post-Human Feminism. So, in this performance, I am thinking about what ‘we’ is, collectively, how we comprehend ‘this’, and the object relations of those two standings and their complexities. I would like you to think about what ‘we’ now are - in an emergent world, deeply interwoven to everything that sustains us. We are not separate from this world. We coexist with the ‘this’, and now, knowing such, the ‘we’ and the ‘this’ have become one. We are not in this together; we are ‘this.’ And all that this is, in our future, out there around us, because of us, being us, is us. Understanding ‘this’ becomes evident in our anxiety, not just of the future but what this is in us right now. We cannot be separate from the ‘this’ if the ‘this’ has manifested in real time from within us. Kyle Gann, In his book, No Such Thing as Silence (Icons of America Series): John Cage's 4'33", reminds us that the divisions we “habitually maintain between art and life” are a symptom of our anthropocentric nihilism. A self that separates, through the ego, from a world we are intrinsically linked to, is a self vitally and woefully fissured and at risk from those who seek to profit from the rift. [3] It is through the unidentified ruptures of grief that we are being redesigned and reengineered, yet it’s not the artist's place to support today's truth. Our role is to reflect it, even if that reflection contains all that is ugly, weird, and unyielding, without apology for the lamented losses that see us so woefully unready for this relentless race for the future. If we are to read loss through Hito Steyerl, then how are the arts complicit? What role does an artist take when producing media in today's emergent and turbulent world?

Iteration #4 Roadside. Film Still - Already, performance and public engagement are taking on a very orthodox framing. The composition relies heavily upon the sited body and the position I have taken in front of the camera.

Film still. Iteration #21: Performing to the Crowd At 21 seconds in we lose the camera. What would a blank screen smell like with no sound?

This latest iteration (21) captures performances that connect art with ecological becomings as unresolved and ongoing, This method helps viewers think about their relationship with nature in more colletive relational ways. It

encourages both artists and audiences to think through their roles in environmental matters, promoting active consideration with non-human/more-than-human entanglements.

Studio experimentation. Photo of me trying to disappear from view. This tesy work was when I first acquired a cello. I felt strangely needing to care for this instrument, not knowing what was required of me when in its company.

iteration #20, ***Holding, What are your politics of care. I brought you closer.***

In what I term a Post-[un]Human philosophy (The imagined debasing of human centrism that embraces new ways to coexist alongside all entities), a refreshed theoretical positioning underpins my assertion that human existence is inextricably linked with the material world and technological systems, [4] yet we need new undoing’s of our approach to the future incumbent. Therefore, the Post-[un]Human philosophy emphasises, through each performance of 4:33, that object relations—the connections between humans, non-humans, and the environment they co-habit - are vital to understanding the subjectivity of these same object relations and our entanglement with the future material world. And the medium for hearing our thoughts across this space and time is silence. I want you to imagine you are in space where there is no medium for sound to travel through. Then imagine a super-nova event, an exploding star. It would make no sound. Think about that. Yet, where you were able to witness such an event, there would still be its reality, just not in a way you would have been taught. And here is my point: just because there are normative functionalities of experiencing an environment, it doesn’t mean we need to accept them as the only way. But, it requires new ways of being that escape our Cartesian heritage and, like our sun, harness energy to hear our lament. To produce energy without falling into apathy, we will delve into an approach fostered through the thinking of Bernard Steigler and his reimagining of what entropy harnesses as a tactic. A fundamental principle of Steiglers that the Post-[un]Human adopts is neganthropy—the force that resists entropy, encouraging life, growth, and flourishing. I stress the importance of acting with care and responsibility towards all beings, human and non-human alike. My work recognises that human actions have far-reaching effects on the biosphere; thus, ethical and sustainable practices are imperative. So, returning to competition, we can realise a new question - where do we put our energy?

Above: First experiential screening of 9 iterations.

9 screen Installation including a suspended cello.

In this experiment filmed documentation is not simply a tool for archiving performances but a dynamic part of the inquiry into relational ethics. Each filmed iteration acts as a refractive space, where the interplay between form (the act of filming) and content (the performance and location) shapes the research as it evolves. The camera becomes both a witness and a participant in the sympoietic process, amplifying the spatio-temporal entanglement between performer, place, and eco-grief.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Simon Schama’s History of Now - Series 1: 2. Equality <https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0d5wfy6/simon-schamas-history-of-now-series-1-3-the-price-of-plenty> [accessed 19 May 2024].

[2] Rosi Braidotti, ‘Rosi Braidotti: Posthuman, All Too Human? A Cultural Political Cartography', O2 Inhuman Symposium, YouTube, 25 May 2015, https://youtu.be/gNJPR78DptA?si=xh0sFhfM5HNFN61_&t=1564 [accessed 15/09/2024] 17:25sec.

[3] Gann, Kyle, No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33", Icons of America (Yale University Press, 2010) p. 145

[4] see ‘State of The Art: Crisis Imaginaries, Techno-Utopias, or Possible (Sustainable) Futures? Panel Discussion at Bonniers Konsthall’, The Eco- and Bioart Lab, 2024 <https://ecobioartlab.net/2024/10/07/state-of-the-art-crisis-imaginaries-techno-utopias-or-possible-sustainable-futures-panel-discussion-at-bonniers-konsthall/> [accessed 30 October 2024]. This panel discussion explores emerging intersections between technology and ecology, exemplifying the dynamic co-evolutions within the Post-[un]Human philosophy. It provides a context where the blurring of boundaries between human, technological, and ecological spheres reflects a broader, integrative approach to understanding complex bio-technical relationships in contemporary theoretical discourse.