This work came about because of my own proclivity for material crafting. I definitely felt intimidated to use SCALAR because I am someone who is both very creative and very tactile. Things like sculpture or hand made projects have always appealed to me because I am able to see everything right in front of. I can touch each component and if I mess up I can at least still see all the pieces before me. With things like Metadata and inserted hyperlinks, SCALAR's parts always felt hidden to me. If something is deleted it is simply gone and there are no pieces for me to try and glue back together with my own two hands. I cannot touch it and mold it. Even the use of a platform meant to reflect Posthuman thought still shows a level of dependency to specific systems of learning/ information processing. I was intimidated by the lack of physical manipulation, so for my creative portion of my project I turned to familiar territory to help circumnavigate this technological problem. 

I wanted to be sure to include all of the themes I’ve previously been discussing over the course of my project like machines & animals and how we construct their deaths, states of hybridity etc... This influenced the choices I made in terms of materials and construction. 

The Wires

My first approach was to simply keep my options open and use whatever I found. I asked around trying to find spare computer parts or whatever else I may be able to use. I wasn't going to destroy something already in use, but relied on what I would be able to find. I ended up finding an abandoned wire plug and decided to use it to index the presence of the machine on my face. In a sense I've given this machine part another life/ another usage. I've intentionally arranged them in a pattern to imitate nervous systems and veins, but I wasn't extremely stringent with this approach. I leaned into how these lines crisscrossing in spreading strayed from what we may consider human. I allowed for it to take on whatever shape felt right with the location on the face and the patterns around it. I let the face and the wires have a dialogue and effect one another.  

The Bones

Figuring out how to include my animal related discourses and incorporate them as a component of hybridity was what I struggled with the most. I bounced back and forth between several ideas, like using plant clippings and let them die, but the idea came to me as my friends and I sat down to eat a little smorgasbord type dinner. My friend cracked open a can of sardines for the table and as I picked through the meat I drew out it's spine. I was surprised the spine would still be in the fish after being packaged. It got me thinking about how canned fish are a commercialized product and some of our associations with them. For most, they usually sit untouched in the back of the pantry until there are no other more appetizing options. The fish's life is overlooked because they are not given the same priority as a mammal who is considered to have more 'sentience'. As I worked and, literally, pressed each bone into the face I became more and more aware of each individual bone.