Multiplicity

While reading through some papers dealing with the intersection of philosophy and rhythm, I stumbled upon A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by the French philosopher/psychologist duo Deleuze and Guattari, a wandering treatise that explores the concept of the “rhizome,” a non-hierarchical network of connections, arguing against traditional, linear structures of thought and advocating for a philosophy that embraces multiplicity, deterritorialization, and the constant flow of becoming, where identities are not fixed but rather fluid and constantly shifting across various “plateaus” of experience. These were critical ruminations on some of the central questions of my ongoing inquiry, “what does it mean to be human?” The book itself is a paradox; a dense tome that challenges the reader to experience its chapters non-sequentially while existing in a bound and sequenced form. The authors argue that a rhizomatic structure spreading and interconnecting infinitely outward is a powerful way to build understanding, despite capitalism’s interest in specialization, which is likened to an arboreal structure that presents as individual and grows specifically upward.

I entered this project after three semesters of rigorous and experimental exploration that spanned walking, drawing, print, painting, sculpture, collage, video, sound, music, photography, artist’s books, social practice, performance, and design. All of these areas, so widely practiced as discrete disciplines, interconnect through my daily life and creative practices. Spending time making sculptures changes how I see light and shadow when I draw. Engaging in acts of repetition and variation in a social practice exercise–holding a sign on a corner daily for 100 days–informs how I use repetition in a print series or electronic music composition. The installation was an experiment in nonhierarchical organization and a love letter to multimodality, a meditation on my art practice through experimental exhibition. All of the work I make belongs in the same world. Nothing is discrete, and there are no “bodies of work.” Everything is in dialogue with everything else.

This world-building exercise unfolded continuously throughout its 60-hour installation, a work performance that evoked a sense of domesticity, recalling preparation for hosting a gathering: assembling plates of food, creating and modifying seating arrangements, tidying little messes, and arranging beautiful objects. I understood in that space that many of my immersive works share this quality–the job gets done, things are fussed over, and the space is made just so, right up until the first guest arrives and the preparation ritual ends. Time is the container. Though its scope was sprawling and took up the entirety of the 1500+ square foot space, this is the most intimate work I’ve made, and I’m grateful for the people who spent time in the space, looking, listening, and offering lovely feedback during its short time in the physical world.

Gallery 1: A spell of order and presence

In the first gallery of the exhibition I gave focus to my formal curiosities and the connections they made through color, shape, form, and line.

The first thing a visitor encounters in the space is an installation of typed phrases on small strips of cover stock, each with a one-sentence artist statement from a year-long ritual of writing a new artist statement daily. I often use time as a concrete container to experiment fluidly and freely. The work installed in the first gallery evokes a sense of unbridled experimentation, neatly packaged up post de facto for legibility and user experience–the tension between work and play, doing and seeming.

Gallery 2: A spell of translation and mistranslation

This was a container for my inquiry about language, notation, and particles.

Though my work shifts focus fairly often, I am enduringly fascinated with systems and the relationship between repetition and variation. I play with the structure of the grid a fair amount, and the work in this gallery holds questions about mapping, wayfinding, language, notation, and the archival impulse.

Gallery 3: A spell of impermanence and potential

This space was, in part, an exploration of the intertwined rhythms of love, ritual, play, and grieving.

Gallery 4: A spell of doing and being

This space served as the central workspace for my time in GPS and a living, breathing, creative temple, with works-in-progress mixed with finished works constantly being rearranged and put into a new context.

A minimized installation at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, 17′ x 4′ x 12′