NONHUMAN AND MORE-THAN-HUMAN BODIES
Discussion participants:
Gabrielle Cariolle, animation filmmaker, illustrator, senior lecturer in illustration
Lizzie Ridout, artist, communication designer, senior lecturer in communication design
Vanessa Lorenzo, cross-disciplinary artist and researcher
Gabrielle Cariolle, animation filmmaker, illustrator, senior lecturer in illustration
Lizzie Ridout, artist, communication designer, senior lecturer in communication design
Vanessa Lorenzo, cross-disciplinary artist and researcher
Cover image: Gabrielle Cariolle
Interviewer: Ksenia Kopalova
How does encountering bacteria, soil, air reshape everyday understandings of one’s own body? What kinds of knowledge emerge when sensing, feeling, and perceiving are treated as forms of knowing alongside theory? And how might books, archives, and narratives shift if they no longer centre the human subject?
Moving between speculation, experiment, and fieldwork, the conversation asks what it means to communicate across species, disciplines, and media in a time of ecological and epistemic crisis.
Moving between speculation, experiment, and fieldwork, the conversation asks what it means to communicate across species, disciplines, and media in a time of ecological and epistemic crisis.
Mossphone, by Vanessa Lorenzo
photo: Raphaelle Mūeller
photo: Raphaelle Mūeller
You are all working with more-than-human bodies in your work. Could you talk a bit about how this influences/is influenced by your everyday understanding of your own and others’ bodies?
The experience of bacteria on my own skin makes me think of myself as an ecological vessel
Vanessa:
I was introduced to media theory and hacker philosophy at the same time, approaching these in ecological terms. Simultaneously, I got to know about biohacking spaces, and for me it was quite a journey. At the same time, I was studying ecology – the relationship between living things and their environment. In the media theory context, this means that we are making an inventory of media objects that inhabit the same media ecologies. This intersection of fields for me was akin to cutting across different semiotic fields.
So for me, in a biohacker space, the experience of bacteria on my own skin makes me think of myself as an ecological vessel. This experience led me to understand, in a more academic way, what I’d first started in hacker spaces – spaces that were purely electronic, with people just building stuff with metal and code. Introducing things like moss into that defined my approach as hybrid, dealing with hybrid ecologies.
These hybrid ecologies are exciting for me, but on an academic level, there’s a lot of friction in relation to them. For example, under a microscope, a nanoparticle is both a part of an atom and a molecule, but scientifically these are the ways of looking that are split into different disciplines: biology and physics, and essentially – two different cultures of looking and knowing. Disciplines encounter each other and it produces friction: not only in academia, but also in the biohacking context. New forms of making open space for new languages and new forms of knowledge.
I was introduced to media theory and hacker philosophy at the same time, approaching these in ecological terms. Simultaneously, I got to know about biohacking spaces, and for me it was quite a journey. At the same time, I was studying ecology – the relationship between living things and their environment. In the media theory context, this means that we are making an inventory of media objects that inhabit the same media ecologies. This intersection of fields for me was akin to cutting across different semiotic fields.
So for me, in a biohacker space, the experience of bacteria on my own skin makes me think of myself as an ecological vessel. This experience led me to understand, in a more academic way, what I’d first started in hacker spaces – spaces that were purely electronic, with people just building stuff with metal and code. Introducing things like moss into that defined my approach as hybrid, dealing with hybrid ecologies.
These hybrid ecologies are exciting for me, but on an academic level, there’s a lot of friction in relation to them. For example, under a microscope, a nanoparticle is both a part of an atom and a molecule, but scientifically these are the ways of looking that are split into different disciplines: biology and physics, and essentially – two different cultures of looking and knowing. Disciplines encounter each other and it produces friction: not only in academia, but also in the biohacking context. New forms of making open space for new languages and new forms of knowledge.
Biohacking workspace (on the left), and SKA telescope in South Africa (on the right)
Photos by Vanessa Lorenzo
Photos by Vanessa Lorenzo
The tension between feeling and knowing is not necessarily the case: there’s knowing in feeling, knowing in perceiving and sensing
Gabrielle:
I based my project on my visit to an allotment. I like being outdoors, in a garden, putting my hands into things – that’s my very direct embodied engagement with the non-human. There’s a strong phenomenological approach to things where you look at the body as an organ of perception. When I look at other bodies, I see them very much in terms of vibration and energy. That’s not always visible in the work I produce, but fundamentally that’s what interests me.
You scratch the ground a bit and suddenly you see little things moving around – maybe a worm, which is this weird physical being vibrating at a different frequency than you. You can perceive that difference to some extent, and that perception is always there; you can still have some access to those differences. So I look at my body as the entry point toward other bodies, and it’s important for me here to be in a receptive, intuitive, non-intellectual state of not-analysing.
In the context of a PhD, there is a necessity for theoretical engagement, but otherwise, when I’m doing fieldwork, I try not to place myself too rigidly in a conceptual framework. You’re trying to sense what’s happening. The tension between feeling and knowing is not necessarily the case here: there’s knowing in feeling, knowing in perceiving and sensing, so I don’t see them as opposed. The beauty of a more-than-human approach is that it doesn’t cast “traditional” ways of knowing against something new, as if they have to fight. It’s more about expanding the possibilities for knowledge-making through different attitudes and approaches.
I based my project on my visit to an allotment. I like being outdoors, in a garden, putting my hands into things – that’s my very direct embodied engagement with the non-human. There’s a strong phenomenological approach to things where you look at the body as an organ of perception. When I look at other bodies, I see them very much in terms of vibration and energy. That’s not always visible in the work I produce, but fundamentally that’s what interests me.
You scratch the ground a bit and suddenly you see little things moving around – maybe a worm, which is this weird physical being vibrating at a different frequency than you. You can perceive that difference to some extent, and that perception is always there; you can still have some access to those differences. So I look at my body as the entry point toward other bodies, and it’s important for me here to be in a receptive, intuitive, non-intellectual state of not-analysing.
In the context of a PhD, there is a necessity for theoretical engagement, but otherwise, when I’m doing fieldwork, I try not to place myself too rigidly in a conceptual framework. You’re trying to sense what’s happening. The tension between feeling and knowing is not necessarily the case here: there’s knowing in feeling, knowing in perceiving and sensing, so I don’t see them as opposed. The beauty of a more-than-human approach is that it doesn’t cast “traditional” ways of knowing against something new, as if they have to fight. It’s more about expanding the possibilities for knowledge-making through different attitudes and approaches.
There you are, by Gabrielle Cariolle
Lizzie:
My work is in the field of expanded publishing and communication art/design. A lot of the work I’ve made before has been about trying to communicate information to particular people, to convey a message. It’s been really interesting for me to step out of this very human-centred way of working into something that’s forcing me to perceive differently, which is what I’m trying to do in my PhD.
Certain experiences shaped that shift. For example, having a child. In some ways it helped me step outside my own bodily self, to become intensely aware of someone else who is a ‘version of me’, but at the same time entirely separate. For a while a child is you; then an extension of you, then finally their own being.
But I’ve also made a couple of publications that explore different perceptions. In Absentia explores the removal of the word “skirr” from the dictionary. Skirr is defined as “a whirring or grating sound, as of the wings of birds in flight” and the project documented my attempt to photograph (unsuccessfully) a silent bird – an owl – in flight, whilst considering whether if you lose the name of something, does it continue to exist as an idea.
My work is in the field of expanded publishing and communication art/design. A lot of the work I’ve made before has been about trying to communicate information to particular people, to convey a message. It’s been really interesting for me to step out of this very human-centred way of working into something that’s forcing me to perceive differently, which is what I’m trying to do in my PhD.
Certain experiences shaped that shift. For example, having a child. In some ways it helped me step outside my own bodily self, to become intensely aware of someone else who is a ‘version of me’, but at the same time entirely separate. For a while a child is you; then an extension of you, then finally their own being.
But I’ve also made a couple of publications that explore different perceptions. In Absentia explores the removal of the word “skirr” from the dictionary. Skirr is defined as “a whirring or grating sound, as of the wings of birds in flight” and the project documented my attempt to photograph (unsuccessfully) a silent bird – an owl – in flight, whilst considering whether if you lose the name of something, does it continue to exist as an idea.
In Absentia, Lizzie Ridout
Lizzie:
An Unfoldology examines paper and scale in relation to knowledge. I was invited to respond to Chapter 32: Cetology from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. In Cetology, Ishmael attempts a taxonomy of whales, borrowing an analogy from the publishing and bookbinding spheres, and dividing the whales by size into three books: Folio, Octavo and Duodecimo. The edition I created takes these foldings as its starting point, considering the philosophical act of folding paper and its relation to gathering knowledge, as a series of drawings and writings.
An Unfoldology examines paper and scale in relation to knowledge. I was invited to respond to Chapter 32: Cetology from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. In Cetology, Ishmael attempts a taxonomy of whales, borrowing an analogy from the publishing and bookbinding spheres, and dividing the whales by size into three books: Folio, Octavo and Duodecimo. The edition I created takes these foldings as its starting point, considering the philosophical act of folding paper and its relation to gathering knowledge, as a series of drawings and writings.
Unfoldology, Lizzie Ridout
Lizzie:
Reading Daisy Hildyard’s book The Second Body, was another influence. It’s a beautiful piece of ecological writing about the nuances of moving beyond oneself and recognising a connection to the wider world, not just in a physical way, but in terms of the impact of one’s actions.
And, as for many, for a long time I have been feeling demoralised about the human treatment of the planet. Our continued view that the planet is a resource for us to use for our own benefit. In my own practice I kept asking myself: what am I doing? What am I perpetuating? What am I teaching? I realised I needed to change direction. I became more interested in how I can use my skills as a communication artist and designer to open up other – perhaps – more-than-human ways of understanding, looking and knowing.
Reading Daisy Hildyard’s book The Second Body, was another influence. It’s a beautiful piece of ecological writing about the nuances of moving beyond oneself and recognising a connection to the wider world, not just in a physical way, but in terms of the impact of one’s actions.
And, as for many, for a long time I have been feeling demoralised about the human treatment of the planet. Our continued view that the planet is a resource for us to use for our own benefit. In my own practice I kept asking myself: what am I doing? What am I perpetuating? What am I teaching? I realised I needed to change direction. I became more interested in how I can use my skills as a communication artist and designer to open up other – perhaps – more-than-human ways of understanding, looking and knowing.
Remembering Air, Lizzie Ridout
Lizzie, you sent over a summary of part of your PhD project about the idea of the bœkology and an archive of air. Could you talk a bit about how these concerns are influencing that project?
Lizzie:
The original aim of the PhD was to explore the motif of the book as representation of human knowledge – because the book is such an interesting but loaded symbol of knowledge. I have often worked with archives and archival sources, considering the archive as a site for knowledge preservation but also recognising that knowledge is built outwards from the archive too. This examination of the book also works well with my practice in expanded publishing.
The idea of the bœkology – a term I have made up and a merging of the word book + ecology – is to approach the book as both an archival space, and an ecology, connected to many other ecologies. I wondered what happens if we look to more-than-human entities to explore what we think of as “knowledge”? What does the book become if it doesn’t just represent our knowings. Deciding to be more multi-perspectival with archival material has completely changed how I look at sources. Suddenly new patterns emerge or something becomes more focused.
Gabrielle:
I was thinking about the quote from Thich Nhat Hanh that you shared, the Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, writer and teacher:
The original aim of the PhD was to explore the motif of the book as representation of human knowledge – because the book is such an interesting but loaded symbol of knowledge. I have often worked with archives and archival sources, considering the archive as a site for knowledge preservation but also recognising that knowledge is built outwards from the archive too. This examination of the book also works well with my practice in expanded publishing.
The idea of the bœkology – a term I have made up and a merging of the word book + ecology – is to approach the book as both an archival space, and an ecology, connected to many other ecologies. I wondered what happens if we look to more-than-human entities to explore what we think of as “knowledge”? What does the book become if it doesn’t just represent our knowings. Deciding to be more multi-perspectival with archival material has completely changed how I look at sources. Suddenly new patterns emerge or something becomes more focused.
Gabrielle:
I was thinking about the quote from Thich Nhat Hanh that you shared, the Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, writer and teacher:
“
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. We can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are.
‘Interbeing’ is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix ‘inter-’ with the verb ‘to be,’ we have a new verb, inter-be. [...] You cannot point out one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything coexists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. To be is to inter-be.
‘Interbeing’ is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix ‘inter-’ with the verb ‘to be,’ we have a new verb, inter-be. [...] You cannot point out one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything coexists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. To be is to inter-be.
Gabrielle:
Are you going to find ways of making us access those connections too – not just the things in the archive, but all the connections that exist around them? An online hypertext is an obvious, but too easy solution here, so I’d love to see what materialities you’d use to connect things together, and how you’ll let us have our own journey through it too.
Are you going to find ways of making us access those connections too – not just the things in the archive, but all the connections that exist around them? An online hypertext is an obvious, but too easy solution here, so I’d love to see what materialities you’d use to connect things together, and how you’ll let us have our own journey through it too.
Lizzie:
Both the idea of the book-as-ecology and air as the basis of what’s in the archive intimate that the spaces between pages / things / knowledges are as important as the pages themselves, if not more so.
I’m not entirely sure which form this bœoklogy will take at the moment (as a potential outcome that others encounter), or its precise relationship with the archive of air (the data I’m gathering). They may be one and the same thing. I’m still deciding whether it will all be paper-based, or a digital, searchable archive of air, or something spatial, or all of these. Is it to serve my own needs (a database to log what I’m finding), or is it for others to experience too? I imagine something that can grow or change, whatever form it takes.
Another obvious solution is a loose-leaf book. I love the ‘stacks’ of Félix González-Torres: loose sheets of paper that people can take with them, ultimately dispersing, transforming, and/or destroying the work. It’s a beautiful way of experiencing a book in space and considering the wider ‘reach’ of pages and their serendipitous dissemination.
But I’m also wary of deciding too much too early. I want to keep things open and test different scenarios. The archive of air and its contents are still emerging, so it will all depend on what the source material offers up, how it might be read “differently”, and how I step beyond my own (inevitably) biased reading.
Both the idea of the book-as-ecology and air as the basis of what’s in the archive intimate that the spaces between pages / things / knowledges are as important as the pages themselves, if not more so.
I’m not entirely sure which form this bœoklogy will take at the moment (as a potential outcome that others encounter), or its precise relationship with the archive of air (the data I’m gathering). They may be one and the same thing. I’m still deciding whether it will all be paper-based, or a digital, searchable archive of air, or something spatial, or all of these. Is it to serve my own needs (a database to log what I’m finding), or is it for others to experience too? I imagine something that can grow or change, whatever form it takes.
Another obvious solution is a loose-leaf book. I love the ‘stacks’ of Félix González-Torres: loose sheets of paper that people can take with them, ultimately dispersing, transforming, and/or destroying the work. It’s a beautiful way of experiencing a book in space and considering the wider ‘reach’ of pages and their serendipitous dissemination.
But I’m also wary of deciding too much too early. I want to keep things open and test different scenarios. The archive of air and its contents are still emerging, so it will all depend on what the source material offers up, how it might be read “differently”, and how I step beyond my own (inevitably) biased reading.
There is, indeed, a lot of resistance in the materials and mediums that we work with, but also – in the environments. Vanessa, earlier you mentioned the resistance towards hybrid approaches in academia – could you talk a bit more about that?
Vanessa:
This friction seems to come from resistance towards creating permeable ways of creating knowledge. In microbiology, for example, there are strict protocols on how knowledge is created, shared, and disseminated. When you are building a hybrid ecology, however, that merges the living and not-living entities, like bacteria in a petri dish paired up with hardware and electronics, these protocols become irrelevant, there are no rules in this territory.
This friction seems to come from resistance towards creating permeable ways of creating knowledge. In microbiology, for example, there are strict protocols on how knowledge is created, shared, and disseminated. When you are building a hybrid ecology, however, that merges the living and not-living entities, like bacteria in a petri dish paired up with hardware and electronics, these protocols become irrelevant, there are no rules in this territory.
Vanessa Lorenzo, experimenting with Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast
working with hybrid ecologies [...] is an attempt to establish different cosmologies – with a revival of interest towards pagan cultures, for example – and shift established ontological hierarchies.
Vanessa:
Going back to what Lizzie said about communication, I think I’m also trying to experiment with ways of communicating new knowledge. For me, working with hybrid ecologies is trying to find new ways of communicating with more-than-human and non-human beings themselves, as well as a way of responding to the ecological crisis that we are living in right now. It is in a sense an attempt to establish different cosmologies – with a revival of interest towards pagan cultures, for example – and shift established ontological hierarchies.
Traditional language is something that is no longer useful, and we have to learn how to communicate with those hybrids: be that the communication between healthy cells and cancer cells, or communication between drones, these ‘electronic birds’. All these new agencies have political weight, hence we are forced to learn to communicate with them.
Going back to what Lizzie said about communication, I think I’m also trying to experiment with ways of communicating new knowledge. For me, working with hybrid ecologies is trying to find new ways of communicating with more-than-human and non-human beings themselves, as well as a way of responding to the ecological crisis that we are living in right now. It is in a sense an attempt to establish different cosmologies – with a revival of interest towards pagan cultures, for example – and shift established ontological hierarchies.
Traditional language is something that is no longer useful, and we have to learn how to communicate with those hybrids: be that the communication between healthy cells and cancer cells, or communication between drones, these ‘electronic birds’. All these new agencies have political weight, hence we are forced to learn to communicate with them.
Mari Mutare, by Vanessa Lorenzo
Are people returning to their own geographical and cultural histories because they feel a discomfort about taking other people’s stories or experiences?
Lizzie:
Your recent projects, Vanessa, – Sugaarklang and Always Coming Home – both really appealed to me because there’s something very ancient in both of them. Your work feels speculative and oriented towards the future, whereas mine is always historical and retrospective.
You mention, however, European pagan folklore and mythmaking as psychocultural responses to social, climatic, and political uncertainty. I’ve also been thinking about why we return to these ancient stories.
I’m in Cornwall, in the southwest of the UK, and there’s been a resurgence of interest in witchcraft here, and in the UK more broadly. I wonder if part of that is a desire to acknowledge the appropriation and extraction we’ve taken part in for so long but without really noticing. Are people returning to their own geographical and cultural histories because they feel a discomfort about taking other people’s stories or experiences?
Similarly, there is the same discomfort and unease with the more-than-human, because we’re presenting other beings and other perspectives without being able to get consent from them. You can’t get a big tick from a non-human being saying, “Yes, that’s fine.”
Your recent projects, Vanessa, – Sugaarklang and Always Coming Home – both really appealed to me because there’s something very ancient in both of them. Your work feels speculative and oriented towards the future, whereas mine is always historical and retrospective.
You mention, however, European pagan folklore and mythmaking as psychocultural responses to social, climatic, and political uncertainty. I’ve also been thinking about why we return to these ancient stories.
I’m in Cornwall, in the southwest of the UK, and there’s been a resurgence of interest in witchcraft here, and in the UK more broadly. I wonder if part of that is a desire to acknowledge the appropriation and extraction we’ve taken part in for so long but without really noticing. Are people returning to their own geographical and cultural histories because they feel a discomfort about taking other people’s stories or experiences?
Similarly, there is the same discomfort and unease with the more-than-human, because we’re presenting other beings and other perspectives without being able to get consent from them. You can’t get a big tick from a non-human being saying, “Yes, that’s fine.”
Sugaarklang, by Vanessa Lorenzo
It’s been painful to train my brain to recognise the ecologies that cohabit one place and semiospheres that cut across mine.
Vanessa:
For me, speculation allows me to be more respectful in my work: for me it is active acknowledgement that this is a product of my intuition, even if enriched with academic writing, science fiction, local knowledge, and other inputs.
I am not a big reader of science fiction myself, but when it comes to alternative, I find a lot of inspiration in non-anthopocentric narratives that are not focused on human ego, like Black feminist science fiction.
There is local knowledge that affects my work, too – from my hometown Bilbao, and then from Switzerland and Germany where I lived – trying to go back to what I know, to something solid from which I can articulate a story. I feel like such local knowledge in the form of pagan culture is something that came to glue together Europe eventually. At the same time, I connected that to Amerindian, African, and Asian mythologies, noticing similar mythological figures explaining lots of similar starting points.
At the same time still, I’m also conscious about the privilege associated with being human and being white and European, and it’s been painful to train my brain to recognise the ecologies that cohabit one place and semiospheres that cut across mine.
For me, speculation allows me to be more respectful in my work: for me it is active acknowledgement that this is a product of my intuition, even if enriched with academic writing, science fiction, local knowledge, and other inputs.
I am not a big reader of science fiction myself, but when it comes to alternative, I find a lot of inspiration in non-anthopocentric narratives that are not focused on human ego, like Black feminist science fiction.
There is local knowledge that affects my work, too – from my hometown Bilbao, and then from Switzerland and Germany where I lived – trying to go back to what I know, to something solid from which I can articulate a story. I feel like such local knowledge in the form of pagan culture is something that came to glue together Europe eventually. At the same time, I connected that to Amerindian, African, and Asian mythologies, noticing similar mythological figures explaining lots of similar starting points.
At the same time still, I’m also conscious about the privilege associated with being human and being white and European, and it’s been painful to train my brain to recognise the ecologies that cohabit one place and semiospheres that cut across mine.
Always Calling Home, by Vanessa Lorenzo
Vanessa:
For example, the project Always Calling Home was conducted with a Swiss ProHelvetia grant in South Africa. I wanted to study South African lore, narratives of the indigenous peoples about the sky, but I found myself not knowing how to position myself in this process. Eventually I organised a workshop where people brought rocks and told the stories attached to them. Then I turned those stories and sonified data from space into sounds, as if they were messages from asteroids. That’s my attempt at an ethical, listening, pagan science fiction.
For example, the project Always Calling Home was conducted with a Swiss ProHelvetia grant in South Africa. I wanted to study South African lore, narratives of the indigenous peoples about the sky, but I found myself not knowing how to position myself in this process. Eventually I organised a workshop where people brought rocks and told the stories attached to them. Then I turned those stories and sonified data from space into sounds, as if they were messages from asteroids. That’s my attempt at an ethical, listening, pagan science fiction.
Always Calling Home, by Vanessa Lorenzo
Gab, I think your work in comics and narrative tackles similar challenges. How do we make narratives about non-human entities when narration itself is such a human-centred process?
Gabrielle:
When I started the PhD, I framed it as looking at more-than-human subjectivities: how to express, through illustration, situated experiences of beings other than humans – including humans, but also everything else.
As I’ve progressed, I’ve become less interested in “subjectivity” as it’s usually defined. The word “subjectivity” is heavily tied to literature and written language, where you always write from the inside of someone’s consciousness. Images don’t quite work that way. So now I’m moving away from the idea of subjectivity and more toward experiencing affect.
When I started the PhD, I framed it as looking at more-than-human subjectivities: how to express, through illustration, situated experiences of beings other than humans – including humans, but also everything else.
As I’ve progressed, I’ve become less interested in “subjectivity” as it’s usually defined. The word “subjectivity” is heavily tied to literature and written language, where you always write from the inside of someone’s consciousness. Images don’t quite work that way. So now I’m moving away from the idea of subjectivity and more toward experiencing affect.
There you are, by Gabrielle Cariolle
Language has a way of re-centering the tale around humans. Silence would allow for more horizontal relations between bodies.
Gabrielle:
My process started from a real allotment not far from where I live. I have friends who have a plot there. I used the allotment as a meeting platform for different beings and humans who cohabit the space. I did interviews with people in the allotment and made observational drawings to get into that space.
Then I came up with this idea of a three-point perspective: the gardener, the animal, and the camera. I thought it would be interesting to position those three poles of attention and switch between them. I would approach the same story in a very different way now.
Is it successful? I don’t know, I think in a sense it does not matter! In a PhD process one always feels they are late: practice takes so much longer than reading, thinking, and writing.
Lizzie
I think that’s actually the joy. Not being focused on success strips away the pressure of perfection, allowing you to enjoy the process. This whole PhD journey has to be joyful. I’m just too old to be doing this for any other reason than wanting to learn and explode everything I thought I knew before!
Gab, your work is absolutely beautiful and a question arose for me about why you chose English for the characters to speak? I was reminded of a book by the illustrator Carson Ellis, Du Iz Tak? where she invents a whole language for insects. You don’t know what it means at first, but by the end you understand the vibe of what’s going on between them.
Gabrielle:
I am debating whether to use written words at all. The story doesn’t really need it, while language has a way of re-centering the tale around humans. Silence would allow for more horizontal relations between bodies, but then, it may also imply miscommunication or an impossibility to relate. So - still thinking.
My process started from a real allotment not far from where I live. I have friends who have a plot there. I used the allotment as a meeting platform for different beings and humans who cohabit the space. I did interviews with people in the allotment and made observational drawings to get into that space.
Then I came up with this idea of a three-point perspective: the gardener, the animal, and the camera. I thought it would be interesting to position those three poles of attention and switch between them. I would approach the same story in a very different way now.
Is it successful? I don’t know, I think in a sense it does not matter! In a PhD process one always feels they are late: practice takes so much longer than reading, thinking, and writing.
Lizzie
I think that’s actually the joy. Not being focused on success strips away the pressure of perfection, allowing you to enjoy the process. This whole PhD journey has to be joyful. I’m just too old to be doing this for any other reason than wanting to learn and explode everything I thought I knew before!
Gab, your work is absolutely beautiful and a question arose for me about why you chose English for the characters to speak? I was reminded of a book by the illustrator Carson Ellis, Du Iz Tak? where she invents a whole language for insects. You don’t know what it means at first, but by the end you understand the vibe of what’s going on between them.
Gabrielle:
I am debating whether to use written words at all. The story doesn’t really need it, while language has a way of re-centering the tale around humans. Silence would allow for more horizontal relations between bodies, but then, it may also imply miscommunication or an impossibility to relate. So - still thinking.
There you are, by Gabrielle Cariolle