Defending Plural Experiences; sculpture, performance and modes of reception in posthumanist exhibition practice

Defending Plural Experiences is the title of my major body of work in 2014, and also the title of my exegesis and is a quote taken from Paolo Virno’s writing on his concept of “multitude” which redefines masses as a group of “many individuals”. This term is a way of situating my rhizomatic, pluralistic approach to art making and also my political intentions. The research outlines the developing relationship of the museum and the subject leading into the 21st century as one that allowed for new ways to view and experience artworks. I analyse the exhibition format as a pathway through the exhibition experience, as a navigational performance or parcours following the research of Tony Bennett and Dorothea von Hantelmann and artists, for example Philippe Parreno among others, who have explored ways in which aspects of the theatre format, which holds a group’s attention for a fixed amount of time, have been imported into the exhibition in order to challenge and redirect the value of the art experience. I situate this research in the exegesis through investigations of artworks which expand on how art is produced and received, including works by Dominique Gonzalez- Foerster, Pierre Huyghe and Tino Sehgal. The research considers how we might inhabit art museums and public spaces in new ways to produce new understandings that question societies of control and also find, produce and demonstrate a joy in doing so. My research prioritises a physical understanding of exhibitions and performances, favouring direct physical learning, emphasising the embodied difference of performers, and choreographic approaches to art making. By working with bodies I respond to a post-Fordist condition of contemporary labour from a feminist, posthumanist perspective, which I have used to devise movements, behavioural choreography and material couplings as sculpture. These are attempts to expand the possibilities of human and non-human, living and non-living bodies, being guided by the likes of Rosi Braidotti and Donna Haraway, and to address how we can understand ourselves as a species, expanding our experiences ethically and joyously through innovative art works.