“DESCENT ≈ An Atlas of Relation” presented by Roe
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Experiencing the Anthropocene. A Transdisciplinary Journey Through Earth
Presentation Title:
- DESCENT ≈ An Atlas of Relation
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
DESCENT ≈ An Atlas of Relation, looks to the fish – who have occupied our planet for millions of years in a constant struggle for survival – as an entryway to visualize the entanglements of interspecies relation through time-based imaging systems referencing the imperceptible slowness of evolutionary processes. Digital photographs, scans, and video documentation are combined with UV-sensitive direct contact printing methods that require multiple minutes, hours, or days to construct an image of/with the natural world. While these camera-less works archive the durational period of each exposure – appearing as frozen traces serving as documents or specimens – the digital images and time-based video clips function as infinitely reproducible experience. Together, these recording techniques result in unpredictable visuals corresponding with feminist perspectives on Darwin’s theory of descent emphasizing anti-essentialist understandings of matter and nature, considering all aspects of Being as forever transformed by and within time.
Thus far works have been produced throughout the U.S. in locations undergoing restoration or habitat conservation, and where relationships to land and water are disputed, revered, mourned, misunderstood, or unacknowledged. This requires recognition of how private and public land acquisition and corresponding histories of displacement (have and continue to) physically and culturally shape these watersheds. Connecting this knowledge with the unimaginable span of deep time embedded within the lives of fish and their watery homes to varied understandings of descent – as passage, downward movement, decline, sinking, legacy, lineage, origination – suggests both the promise and peril of ecological longevity. Resulting visuals consider how our bodies, along with fish and other organisms, find ways of being and living together within the midst of a globally shifting climate impacting our shared resources and, subsequently, our relations. As a collective of inhabitants, how do we persist, together, within the relentless ongoing-ness of our worlds?
