First, collect ...
The rusted objects were collected whenever and wherever I was - now and in the past. It strikes me that I have always been attracted to rust. I wonder why? What is interesting for me now is the psychological connection between them and my attuned state. This ‘selective attention’ seems to be what artists call ‘resonance’ with objects. The method of collection was, and still is, very random and intuitive. An old crate lined with badly stained paper was the repository for whatever was thrown in. This occurred over a period of time and , without any input from me, the objects started to stain the paper. My move in response to this was to hasten the process (to accelerate it) by mixing a solution of an acidic salt, ferrous sulphate (a fertilizer), and pouring it into the crate and then forgetting about it. I'm allowing the rust to make its own marks without my involvement. When I next looked, a surprising rust ‘print’ had developed. My 'dance' move in response to this was to emphasize some of the areas with pencil crayons. A few cast shadows and highlights provided an interesting tension between the flat 2D ghost prints and the 3D illusions. I'm always aware now of the 'vital force in materials' (Runge in Lange-Berndt 2012: 96) and also of Bennett's 'vital matter' (in Sun 2015: n.pag) when I work with materials and this is something new that has emerged for me, after my usual desire for extreme human control of matter. My challenge is to choreograph the dance of agency so that my involvement does not disappear altogether but that materials have as much agency as is possible. Sitting quietly with the print and its ghostly remnants of objects while following their shapes with a crayon, proved very meditative. I had experienced this before with my bitumen drawings and have connected the act of rhythmic movements and calming a restless mind with a decrease in pain. This is in keeping with my other mindfulness meditations and ties-in with Varela, Thompson & Rosch's thinking in their work on the Embodied Mind (Kindle ed. 2016) Mindfulness sessions (via Zoom) with Roxana Chiappa are/were also useful in isolation. (Rhodes YouTube channel) 
Rust print 2021
Neith Moore Ferrous sulphate, pencil crayons on stained Fabriano 42 x 42cm |
The Properties of Rust March 2021
My ‘dance of agency’ (Pickering 2007) has involved moving around the waste site surrounding our home's construction site and I like to think of these moves as ‘dumpster dancing’. The pandemic and the connected anxiety about my vulnerability is still operating as a resistance in this dance by preventing me from going out and working in other places and with other people. However, this isolated ‘dumpster dancing’ is proving to be an accommodation as it is providing me with much needed material and is also opening my eyes to the possibilities of raw iron and wood. Rusted iron has been resonating particularly strongly with me. These rusted objects are sometimes hard to see as they disappear into the brownness of the surrounding wood, soil and leaves and it occurs to me that this could be rather common as a human perceptual feature. The mundane ‘disappears’ from our view. And becomes invisible to the human gaze. Could I make them less invisible? Could they have aesthetic qualities in their own right that are overlooked? As in any dance, there could be 4 steps in a movement sequence and then the sequence would be repeated. "1 and 2 and a 3 and 4" Collect Consider Choose Contain I have chosen this as a sequence for my involvement with rust in my dance of agency. 
Barad’s idea of ‘queering’ became important (in a material sense) as I considered how to use these objects collected from a construction site in an art context so that they would “differ... in some way from what is usual or normal”.
(Merriam- Webster Def) As Barad asks "How can the possibility of the queerness of one of the most pervasive of all critters – atoms – be entertained? These “ultraqueer” critters with their quantum quotidian qualities queer queerness itself in their radically deconstructive ways of being. The aim is to show that all sorts of seeming impossibilities are indeed possible, including the queerness of causality, matter, space, and time." (Barad in Nature's Queer Performativity 2012: 25) What has built on this concept of inanimate material agency for me is the work done by Mcphie in the pedagogy of psychogeography. Here he asks his architecture students to interview buildings. His ideas on material agency also reference Symborska's 'Conversation with a Stone', which again resonates with my intra-actions with materials. (Mcphie 2018)
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Many of my movements in these works encountered a physical resistance in the form of pain. Ripping pallets apart, cutting wood, hammering and drilling all caused pain in my hands and back.
My accommodation was to stop the large physical movements and draw for a while.
One of the drawings this time involved a form of hand massage with wax over a paper mask which suggests the object retrieved from the dump. I then added graphite, massaged again, scraped back, added wax and continued in a rhythmic manner. The pencil crayons were dipped in wax and then line after line was added meditatively and rhythmically as I kept my eyes fastened on the textures of the retrieved objects.
[videos below]
My accommodation was to stop the large physical movements and draw for a while.
One of the drawings this time involved a form of hand massage with wax over a paper mask which suggests the object retrieved from the dump. I then added graphite, massaged again, scraped back, added wax and continued in a rhythmic manner. The pencil crayons were dipped in wax and then line after line was added meditatively and rhythmically as I kept my eyes fastened on the textures of the retrieved objects.
[videos below]
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Rusted nails 2021
Neith Moore
Graphite and wax, pencil crayons on paper 30 x 42cm
Neith Moore
Graphite and wax, pencil crayons on paper 30 x 42cm
Third, choose & contain ...
The piles of waste wood enabled me to construct a container for the objects. Drilling, gluing and hammering were my human agential contributions to creating a stage for the rusted objects to ‘strut their stuff’.
The scale had to be based on the premise that those were the existing collected sizes of the wooden bits and the objects. This was strange to me as this kind of decision making had previously been my ‘artistic’ choice, not a material choice. I found my only intentional choice was to limit the number of objects in an attempt to allow them space to ‘show off’. I was also (painfully) aware of the ‘resistances’ of my body in its painful state and the restricted size of my available studio space.
The piles of waste wood enabled me to construct a container for the objects. Drilling, gluing and hammering were my human agential contributions to creating a stage for the rusted objects to ‘strut their stuff’.
The scale had to be based on the premise that those were the existing collected sizes of the wooden bits and the objects. This was strange to me as this kind of decision making had previously been my ‘artistic’ choice, not a material choice. I found my only intentional choice was to limit the number of objects in an attempt to allow them space to ‘show off’. I was also (painfully) aware of the ‘resistances’ of my body in its painful state and the restricted size of my available studio space.
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Rust containment - version 1
Neith Moore 2021 |
My final piece was a synthesis of the rusted objects and the record of their properties of staining, oxidizing, flaking, disintegrating, penetrating, colour changing, leaking, …
Because I enjoyed the process of playing with 2D and 3D illusionism, I then added my part of the dance by drawing. As the wood was already paint-blotched, I added to the disarray by throwing more white wall PVA at it and then messing that up with rusted steel wool and ferrous sulphate. Rinse and repeat…
Note: At the crit, the scale was felt to be too small, so I think the many removable parts/objects could move out of the container and onto the wall. More objects could be added to the collection but on the wall.
Another possibility would be to work in multiples and collect/create more of these wooden ‘stages’.
These reflections become important as they become gateways for future work, in other words possible ‘accommodations’.
Because I enjoyed the process of playing with 2D and 3D illusionism, I then added my part of the dance by drawing. As the wood was already paint-blotched, I added to the disarray by throwing more white wall PVA at it and then messing that up with rusted steel wool and ferrous sulphate. Rinse and repeat…
Note: At the crit, the scale was felt to be too small, so I think the many removable parts/objects could move out of the container and onto the wall. More objects could be added to the collection but on the wall.
Another possibility would be to work in multiples and collect/create more of these wooden ‘stages’.
These reflections become important as they become gateways for future work, in other words possible ‘accommodations’.
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Note: The actual artwork was seen as a frame by many colleagues. The rust print was then considered the artwork! This was an interesting figure/ground perceptual phenomenon. (reference)
I have separated the two pieces and prefer it this way, hence version 1 and 2. I visualize a physical area or virtual space as a rust laboratory, which contains the experiments, the chemicals and the record of dances to come. My new works will take place in this 'rust' laboratory. One is already materializing as a record of the temporality of my involvement as the rust moves on its own path at its own pace. |
Rust containment - version 2
Neith Moore 2021 |
Looking at these works in the context of my research questions is always challenging so I have referenced the questions as I have reflected on the works.
My research questions:
- What modes of thinking and artistic practice result from an altered relationship between my agency (as artistic self) and the variety of material agencies I use in my artistic practice - the new ‘dance of agency’ (Pickering 2011)?
- Which parameters that could explain and expand this ‘dance’, could I identify and utilize?
Amongst these could be human wellness parameters with both its somatic and psychological implications during the time of COVID-19.
My research questions:
- What is the nature of the current ‘resistances’ and ‘accommodations’ in my artistic practice in this space, time and place (Pickering 1995)?
- To what extent am I able to interrogate these ‘resistances’ and ‘accommodations’ in this research project to productively expand my practice in a new ‘dance of agency’ (Pickering 2011)?
- What modes of thinking and artistic practice result from an altered relationship between my agency (as artistic self) and the variety of material agencies I use in my artistic practice - the new ‘dance of agency’ (Pickering 2011)?
- Which parameters that could explain and expand this ‘dance’, could I identify and utilize?
Amongst these could be human wellness parameters with both its somatic and psychological implications during the time of COVID-19.
During a discussion on the 26 May on Materiality in general, the question was asked 'but WHY do you want to downplay your artistic input?' 'Why do you want to take the human out of art?'
My position is rather that I want to allow the materials to have more agency to counteract my previous practice where technical control was my modus operandi. Current literature on human/non-human agency and on animate/inanimate agency suggests that this is a worthwhile paradigm shift in our previously humanistic, anthropocentric position.
Writers such as Barad and Pickering have applied this to inanimate materials in science (ref...), while others such as Morton and Ingold (as well as Barad) have applied this ontology to the non/human natural world (ref...) Latour, Deleuze and Guattari refer to a 'flat ontology' where the hierarchy which places the human at the apex has been removed (ref...). All all 'equal' - animal, vegetable and mineral. This sense of equality results in a new ethical position according to Barad - a new 'ethico-onto-epistemology' (ref....). I have already noticed a new sense of resonance with objects/materials in my practice and feel that this is a promising development.
My position is rather that I want to allow the materials to have more agency to counteract my previous practice where technical control was my modus operandi. Current literature on human/non-human agency and on animate/inanimate agency suggests that this is a worthwhile paradigm shift in our previously humanistic, anthropocentric position.
Writers such as Barad and Pickering have applied this to inanimate materials in science (ref...), while others such as Morton and Ingold (as well as Barad) have applied this ontology to the non/human natural world (ref...) Latour, Deleuze and Guattari refer to a 'flat ontology' where the hierarchy which places the human at the apex has been removed (ref...). All all 'equal' - animal, vegetable and mineral. This sense of equality results in a new ethical position according to Barad - a new 'ethico-onto-epistemology' (ref....). I have already noticed a new sense of resonance with objects/materials in my practice and feel that this is a promising development.
Slideshow of images and details