From the very conception of this project, it was always going to be the jellyfish that underpinned my writing, whispering to me from under the bridge. However, my original intent was to explore natural omens, ascribing human meaning where none, or other, should be. Instead I was swept away by the current of research, and caught in the atemporal vœrtex between intent and result. 

Inspired by the tides sweeping jelly blubbers (their real name - a vœrtex of endearing and demeaning) up the Hawkesbury river, I began researching ocean currents. Drawn in by the whorling temperature maps of sea surface currents, research into how they are and will be affected by climate change revealed unprecedented connections with the fluid dynamics of jellyfish. “Jelly”, from Latin gelare (meaning “to freeze, congeal, stiffen”) (Douglas), etymologically connects to the melting glaciers that are partly responsible for the slowing (or congealing, stiffening) of thermohaline circulation systems within the Earth’s oceans. Despite being a stable, closed loop prior to the anthropocene’s devastation, human activity has unbalanced the delicate tensions at play within these systems. Jellyfish, as climate change impacts ecosystems, are experiencing a similar imbalance; with fewer predators as a result of climate change and overfishing, jellyfish populations are exploding, which in turn means that they are eating larger amounts of fish spawn, leading to even fewer predators. 

It was my increasing awareness of these complex loops of unbalanced tension that drew my attention to the vortex rings in the fluid dynamics of jellyfish; specifically, the point (or vertex) at which the two vortex rings spinning in opposite directions meet. The balance of tension served as the inspiration for the creation of vœrtices as a conceptuallinguistic complex. 

Drawing on Derrida’s deconstruction theory, vœrtices contextualise entities as meaningful only through their inherent participation in internal and external tensions. To exist is to be locked in vœrtices; some ancient and unmoving, others oscillating, fading, exploding, whirling in and out of existence. A close reading of Marianne Moore’s “A Jelly-Fish” explores how literary artforms can explore vœrtices in many manifestations. Not only did the poem demonstrate that organisms are defined by their position at the point of tension between many overlapping vœrtices, but it also explored the complexity of inter-entity vœrtices. As stated by Meis, “the jellyfish appears as a literary animal and as an ecocritical figure par excellence: it is continuous with its environment and therefore cannot be considered detached from it.” (2019) The vœrtex becomes a conceptual framework through which to understand the inherent balances and imbalances between the forces that shape our world. It provides a conceptual language for articulating the complex interplay of opposing energies. The tensions within vœrtices create a delicate equilibrium, a point of balance that is constantly negotiated and renegotiated. This negotiation is not a linear process but a nuanced dance of forces, where attraction and repulsion, creation and dissolution, coexist in a perpetual state of tension.