]exposure[[enclosure]
drawing, interactive installation, video, online, community engagement
2020-21
This is a project of becoming-with and being-with animals via the related lenses of disease and vulnerability.
I was one of three artists-in-residence on FIELD, a project investigating endemic livestock disease from the perspectives of history, social science, economics and epidemiology. I researched relationships with animals through farms and farmers. I repeatedly visited and worked with ten farms in Ireland and the UK, and learned from farmers, sheep, bacteria and cows. I spent two months creating artworks on an exhibition residency at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre. The works exhibited there in a solo exhibition before touring to other venues.
Funded by Project FIELD, supported by the Wellcome Trust. Partners were the universities of Lincoln, Leeds (both history), Hull, Newcastle (both social science), Edinburgh (epidemiology), and Glasgow (economics).
a detached touch, 2021, interactive digital media, photography, text, audio, gif, video, dimensions of device
touch technologies as more than human assemblages could be remaking what touching means
This online interactive artwork comprises stories drawn from artist visits to ten farms in late 2020 and early 2021 as part of artistic research into endemic livestock disease and more-than-human relationships.
It includes interactive elements, stories, spoken works, photographs, videos and gifs. The works are all in text and audio, and care was taken to ensure accessibility for all users by including text descriptions and alternative options for interaction. The interactive elements consider not only how we interact, but how we can stay still and engage with one another. The full works can be viewed at this link.
how do we describe our relationships with those more-than-human critters we surround ourselves with? how do we learn to see what is always in front of us?
Title page. Click on this image to open the web artwork
Helen on her farm. The farm research images follow
Helen knew many of her flock intimately
Fransje in the morning
Fransje's sheep enjoyed touch more than most
Nigel by his motor
So many acres in the Scottish hills
Rob on his farm
Rob's pride was in his bulls
Robert looking over fields
On a wild and cold day, the sheep stayed together
Guy proudly by a bullock
Guy's farm was used to show modern principles of heavy grazing
offering, 2021, Raspberry Pi, fence posts, six videos on monitors, timber, 180 x 160 x 25cm
A wall-mounted sculptural artwork about touch, care, screens and our relationship with technology and nonhuman colleagues. This artwork shows six video monitors on a timed loop, each presenting a different perspective on touch. It draws influence from speculative ethics, posthumanist philosophy, and time spent with critters. Presented at the solo exhibition Detached Touch at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, Ireland (August 13th-September 4th 2021).
Made on residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, supported by LSC, Wicklow Arts Office Office and FIELD (Wellcome Trust)
it seemed like we were moving closer together, 2021, Raspberry Pi microcomputer, fence posts, plastic, photographs, Arduino boards (x3) with program, RFID cards & sensors, drawing, Python computer program, several thousand transistors, 250 x 250 x 250cm
This artwork invited visitors to create collages on a monitor from photographs with linked themes about human contact with nonhuman entities. Visitors changed the artwork using RFID contactless cards that were programmed to display different sections of images based on which card was tagged at which device. The artwork encourages people to participate alone or together, to consider contactless technology and connections between human and nonhuman. Designed to ensure accessibility and interactivity for those with disability and limited mobility.
Made on residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, supported by Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Wicklow Arts Office and FIELD (Wellcome Trust), later exhibited at ‘Reboot Me Softly: 19th annual Piksel Festival for Electronic Art and Free Technologies’
Photo by Tadhg Ó Cuirrín
The installation included hand-drawn RFID-enabled plastic cards
The installation included hand-drawn RFID-enabled plastic cards
arguably, they have farmed us particularly well, 2021, trackball, video, audio, interactive installation, 250 x 250 x 250cm
An interactive artwork about touch, reaction and behaviour, and our illusions of power through technology.
This artwork is made up of three interaction touch points that connect to a video screen showing a sped-up video of a sheep-filled landscape, and a single animated critter made from a drawing of a sheep.
because the exchange is complete, 2021, video, HD 1080p
Who is really being farmed? Sheep and cows have spread to every continent, attached to humans, and humans benefit from their company in many ways. An exchange has taken place. Drawing from posthuman philosophy and speculative ethics, I explored this idea of exchange and relationship between animal and human. This film was made as part of FIELD.
The title of this work came from a conversation with Anne Galloway of the more-than-human lab, New Zealand. While speaking to Anne about a farmer who has a close relationship with his sheep, she noted that their relationship is fair because the exchange is complete: both are getting something from it.
The video showed at Hexham Forum Cinema, Hexham, Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle and Everyman Cinema, Lincoln, before travelling to the Athens Digital Arts Festival, Agrofilm Insternational Film Festival, Slovakia and as part of the programme Beastly Landscapes at Newcastle University.
Video available to view online on Peertube at this link.
Click on the image to go to the video on Peertube, subtitles included
FIELDS, 2021, community engagement, drawing, print, animation,
Took part in public engagement programme, attending two market events and providing artistic content for print and online media for project FIELD. Included engaging with community members who had little understanding of the project at markets in Hull and Beverley.
Artworks included drawings and animated gifs.
Full programme and documentation can be viewed at the FIELDS website, at this link.
The stall at Beverley
some animated gifs were created to show the effect of lameness on sheep movement
drawings exhibited, including this one at Museum of English Rural Life, Reading
influences
things I read or saw that helped create this project
- andrea arnold cow (2021) film
- j.a. baker the peregrine (1967) book
- ida bencke, jørgen bruhn multispecies storytelling in intermedial practices (2022) book
- rosi braidotti the posthuman (2013) book
- judith butler the force of nonviolence (2020) book
- maría puig de la bellacasa Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human World (2017) book
- cooking sections salmon: a red herring (2017) artwork
- vinciane despret living as a bird (2021) book
- vinciane despret what would animals say if we asked the right questions? (2012) book
- laura fitzgerald rural stress (2022) artwork
- michel foucault the will to knowledge (1961) book
- anne galloway and catherine caudwell speculative design as a research method (2018) book
- donna haraway staying with the trouble: making kin in the cthuluscene (2016) book
- stefano harney, fred moten the undercommons (2013) book
- sean lynch for the birds (2014) artwork
- maria mckinney sire (2016) book
- dariush mehrjui gaav/the cow (1969) film
- helen macdonald h is for hawk (2014) book
- annemarie mol the logic of care: health and the problem of patient choice (2008) book
- alexis pauline gumbs undrowned (2019) book
- james rebanksenglish pastoral (2020) book
- thelma rowellthe social behaviour of monkeys (1972) book
- thomas thwaitesgoatman: a holiday from being human (2016) artwork
collaborators
I am lucky with this project to have an exciting network of collaborators on the FIELD project.
Aside from the academics, I have also spoken to farmers, vets, sheep and cows as part of the dialogical process. I document here some of those who I have spoken to or collaborated with in the formation of these ideas. We are always learning from one another, so it is difficult to document the value of these conversations.
My thanks and love to all!
FIELD partners (see all profiles online here):
- Prof Abigail Woods, Pro Vice Chancellor and Head of the College of Arts at the Univeristy of Lincoln
- Nicole Gosling, PhD student, University of Lincoln (lameness)
- Prof Karen Sayer, Professor of Social and Cultural History at Leeds Trinity University, Leeds, UK
- Dr James Bowen, Post-Doctoral Research Associate in History based at Leeds Trinity University
- Sue Bradley, oral historian in the Centre for Rural Economy, Newcastle University
- Dr Amy Proctor, Centre for Rural Economy at Newcastle University
- Dr Beth Clark, Centre for Rural Economy at Newcastle University
- Dr Lewis Holloway, Reader in Human Geography at the University of Hull
- Dr Niamh Mahon, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Hull
- Prof Rowland Kao, Chair of Veterinary Epidemiology and Data Science at the Roslin Institute at Edinburgh University
- Dr Ewan Coleman, post-doctoral research associate at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh
- Prof Nick Hanley, Professor of Environmental and One Health Economics at the University of Glasgow
- Maria Suella Rodrigues, PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow
Other Academic, Farmer, Artist, Vet and other human Collaborators:
- Menelaos Gkartzios, Senior Lecturer in Planning & Development, Centre for Rural Economy, Newcastle University
- Cynthia Morrison-Bell, ArtCircuit, Highgreen House, Northumberland, UK
- Helen Pailing, Project Director, Visual Arts in Rural Communities, Highgreen, Northumberland, UK
- Sean O'Reilly, Director, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim, Ireland
- Emma Lucy O'Brien, Director, VISUAL Carlow, Ireland
- Jeremy Fitz-Howard, Acting Manager, Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland
- Anne Galloway, More Than Human Lab, University of Wellington, New Zealand
- Stefanie Wenner, Professor of Applied Theatre Studies and Production Dramaturgy, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (HfBK Dresden)
- Alexis Bernstorff, Textile Conservator and farmer, Wexford, Ireland
- Orla Shorthall, researcher, Aberdeen University
- Conell Vaughan, lecturer, TU Dublin
- Helen Brown, farmer, Chatto, Scotland
- Fransje Samsom and Peter, farmers and growers, Northumberland, England
- Nigel Miller, farmer, vet and ex-National Farmer's Union Scotland president, Scotland
- Rob Dyson, farmer, Northumberland, England
- Robert Philipson, farmer, Sinderhope, Northumberland, England
- Angel Porteus, farmer teacher, pickler, Allenheads, Northumberland, England
- Johnny Archer, farmer, Allenheads, Northumberland, England
- Guy Proudhom, farmer, Yorkshire, England
- Sara Pedersen, vet, Farm Dynamics, Wales and South England
financial support
people or organisations who helped fund the work
- Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award
- Wicklow Arts Office Individual Artist Bursary Award
- FIELD supported by the wellcome trust