Posthuman Symposium

Forest Forge, Ringwood

The Posthuman Symposium was a week long residency in 2021 that brought together artists of different disciplines to explore posthuman aesthetics. Each artist was encouraged to introduce an experiment. These ranged from explorations of posthuman concepts in pagan ritual to experimentation with manipulating form through lighting. This was made possible through crowdfunding via livestream, where participating artists and members of the community shared their existing work in posthumanism

On the research:

My Research that week centered on the use of disembodied facilitation- using text-to-speech and projected text to facilitate communical creation without being physically present. These workshops focused on different forms, such as using writing prompts to create poetry and reference images to inspire sculpture and generative works. This was to investigate how removing the physical presence of a facilitator would effect the dynamics of a community.

These experiments led to the successful creation of sculpture, generative art pieces and poetry. As an observer, I noticed an uncertainty and tension in the group that led to a one-sided instruction based form of facilitation. The group enjoyed the reveal of the poem they had collectively created, but became frustrated as I experimented with more playful behaviour, with text on screen changing the text prompt while they were thinking of an answer. This revealed to me the potential power imbalance in this form of 'remote facilitation', as the disembodied facilitator had no social cache, they are unable to be held accountable. The only thing the group can do is refuse to participate.

Beyond my proposals, a recurring theme of the Posthuman Symposium was how Posthuman concepts can be discussed without entering an apocalyptic post-modern view, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. How we can challenge anthrocentrism and deconstruct binaries of human identity, without losing sight of the driving forces underpinning community oriented work and collective creation? Moving forward, I found the exploration of ancient anglo pagan practises from the lens of posthumanism an interesting proposal, grounding concepts branded 'sci-fi' in a community strengthening context. Particularly, the concept of 'communing' with natural forces. This has led me to explore more with archival material, particularly the use of extinct animal calls as a basis for composition. This led me to the creation of 'Symbiocene', available below.

Notes from process