060217131117: Mnemonic Materials employs a systematic investigation of the artistic process and its variables. The premise of my work attempts to study this in conjunction to the unique materiality of glue and ink through repetition and recreation. In particular, wood glue as a material is extremely malleable, capable of taking on a vast array of forms. It can be as thin as silk, almost transparent in texture or completely solid and unmovable. In addition, as a ‘shape’ substance it is highly influenced by the environment it is placed in. Thus factors such as temperature, the time of day, procedural placement of the work whilst being made and afterward, all determine how the material will respond and solidify. Conceptually, these qualities informed an exploration of the way in which humans and material co-exist in a constant state of flux whereby we are acting and reacting simultaneously to the smallest of happenings. Thus the character of the medium contains elements of entropy, whereby order leads to disorder, no matter how structured one’s process may be.

My work is situated within the discourse of New Materiality, which recognises the sensuous immediacy and life force within materials. According to Donna Haraway (1991), the potential within matter is no longer realised only through the human subject, but is rather “articulated within the human and the non-human, the social and physical and the material and the immaterial”. Similar notions can be seen in Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2009) and Katve-Kaisa Kontturi’s Following the flows of process: A new materialist account of contemporary art (2012), both of which explore the artistry and agency between subject and object, artist and material. In terms of agency, one may refer to Karen Barad (2009) who states that “agency is not held, it is not a property of persons or things; rather, agency is an enactment, a matter of possibilities for reconfiguring entanglements”.

By investigating this through thorough documentation and archiving, my work contemplates the behaviour of humans and how we may influence a material, but ultimately do not control its outcome. By obsessively replicating and recreating my past processes, I have attempted to illustrate the way in which material can be considered responsive instead of compliant .Thus one may observe the manner in which materials become mnemonic when they form a part of a meaningful assemblage; when they become entangled in human and material processes, leaving traces of past experiences. The work pushes the unconventional medium into a spectrum where it becomes defamiliarised: an art object to be contemplated beyond its everyday applications.