Anthropomorphic Interfaces
Interspecies relations and aesthetic infrastructures were further explored in the artistic development work Anthropomorphic Interfaces (2018-2019) in collaboration with Lars Siltberg and Erik Nilsson, with support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Visual Arts Fund (project grant, initiator and project leader, Janna Holmstedt). The aim was to share and develop site-specific skills and sensibilities through place-based interventions outdoors, and to cultivate spatial and narrative strategies by mixing film, performance, sound and text. We used the script as tool, and expanded cinema as format, i.e. an expanded understanding of "film" as a spatial, temporal, material and social apparatus. The chosen site, an urban allotment, became a significant collaborator during the process as we returned to the same site during one year in shifting seasons and circumstances. |
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| If dolphins were companion species through whom anthropocentric word(l)ings could be unlearned and restoried in the doctoral work Are You Ready for a Wet Live-In?, I here turned to soil, an ancient form of maize, and life in the "colonies", i.e. the allotment community. When choosing the theme "anthropomorphic interfaces", we wanted to explore if and how anthropomorphism could be used critically and strategically in an artistic practice. The focus on interfaces soon shifted towards a situation of shared surfaces, where the allotment became a medium that connected different users, through which complex more-than-human systems and relationships could be made tangible. We used listening walks, embodied mappings, field recordings, growing and seed sharing, storytelling by the fire, and film projections on plants, snow, and built constructions. These were weaved into a two-hour public event at dawn, Popcorn & Film: Gräns Snitt (21 Feb 2019), while the sun was setting.
The project has also been presented in "Between Earthworms and Satellites" at the Open Humanities Lab Symposium: New Humanities & the Anthropocene(14-15 May 2019), KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Aspects of the work have also been presented and developed in the seminar series Working with the Vegetal, initiated by Anette Arlander at Uniarts (29 nov 2018, and 4 Apr 2019), and in the walkshop "Allotments and green infrastructures" that I made on invitation from the curators Inga Lace and Jussi Koitela as part of the Performing the Fringe urban research hike in Stockholm, in collaboration with Konsthall C (6 Apr 2019). The session included a talk on the unique green infrastructure of Stockholm and the history of the allotment movements, seed dissemination and a soundwalk.
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