Body Tool, 2023
Body Tool, 2023
Spinning a ball of yarn in 7 and 26 minutes:
Juxtaposing the use of a yarn swift and spinning winder with the use of my own body
Juxtaposing the use of a yarn swift and spinning winder with the use of my own body
I’m passionate about making as a means of embodiment. While tools and technology seem make existing easier, I see the way machines inhibit our ability to engage with the world. Rather than trusting our body’s innate ability to work with the earth and material, we’ve outsourced these movements to machines. Over time, our disengagement makes these simple acts of making seem more complex or abstract. In the rare instance out bodies separate from these technologies, we may be left feeling disempowered, incapable, or vulnerable. It’s as if the world of the body, material and making, and direct engagement has become a lost art or ancient mystery. We’ve been made to forget that we are physical beings.
Here I demonstrate the way my movement changes as I add the presence of a tool, making my body more dormant and less engaged. As we’ve designed tools and machines to afford us more time and energy, we seem to have lost meaning. We’ve lost pleasure by depriving ourselves of the opportunity to engage with something deeply. We’ve optimised our lives to to spend less time and expend less energy. And yet, time and energy is what we seem to lack. We spend our lives optimising for efficiency, and yet, we are left feeling empty and depleted.
I’m interested in engaging my body in the simplest of ways as a reminder that motion can create energy rather than deplete it. I’m interested in deconstructing the illusion of making and simplifying things to their most basic form. I experience these repetitive movements as experiments, meditations, and small acts of protest in a world that is increasingly disconnected from the objects it manufactures and disseminates.
I’m passionate about making as a means of embodiment. While tools and technology seem make existing easier, I see the way machines inhibit our ability to engage with the world. Rather than trusting our body’s innate ability to work with the earth and material, we’ve outsourced these movements to machines. Over time, our disengagement makes these simple acts of making seem more complex or abstract. In the rare instance out bodies separate from these technologies, we may be left feeling disempowered, incapable, or vulnerable. It’s as if the world of the body, material and making, and direct engagement has become a lost art or ancient mystery. We’ve been made to forget that we are physical beings.
Here I demonstrate the way my movement changes as I add the presence of a tool, making my body more dormant and less engaged. As we’ve designed tools and machines to afford us more time and energy, we seem to have lost meaning. We’ve lost pleasure by depriving ourselves of the opportunity to engage with something deeply. We’ve optimised our lives to to spend less time and expend less energy. And yet, time and energy is what we seem to lack. We spend our lives optimising for efficiency, and yet, we are left feeling empty and depleted.
I’m interested in engaging my body in the simplest of ways as a reminder that motion can create energy rather than deplete it. I’m interested in deconstructing the illusion of making and simplifying things to their most basic form. I experience these repetitive movements as experiments, meditations, and small acts of protest in a world that is increasingly disconnected from the objects it manufactures and disseminates.