This month’s [synonym] session at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow explored ‘Life Bestowing Cadaverous Soooooooooooooooooooooooot’ a research exhibition and live programme by Rae-Yen Song. Inviting the viewer to engage with ideas of speculating on the potentials of world-building through a multitude of sensory artworks, prototypes, experiments, artefacts, models, and research practices. With this in mind we tailored our prompts by being inspired by the references in exhibition’s reading space, as well as the fictional ‘world-building’ themes which plays on the prospective ideas of ‘what is beyond?’ this anthropological earth land we live on.
Notes from the discussion: Discussive dialogues from everyone involved
Exhibition exploring the more-than-human, beyond anthropocentric world building, what is beyond and what is left behind. The cinema dioramas with the creature tentacles* emerging from the surfaces – the spotlights shining on the seats a ‘what is left behind’ reminisces of human footprint, plastic, trash, consumerism. The cinema represents the watching being watched – a space for escapism – fictional worldbuilding, where dystopian armageddon films are observed as imaginative escapism but here we are the observed. These spaces are liminal – the unknown in which creates an assimilation of life and fiction. The space of the gallery and or the exhibition as an assimilation of ideas and thought making, where contemporary art and the artworks being observed and how there is a human reliance on how the work is validated – in this exhibition are we the observed as an introspective moment between us and the future – the juxtaposition of the human interacted in a ‘natural history’ type collection of objects along the gallery wall showcasing a collection of anthropogenic objects – in which one object is a cctv camera – we are the subject – who is watching us.
The exhibition funnily enough feels as though it has been created of the idea that those beyond human life have formulated a space in which they think this is what humans were like – which ties in with the natural history museum arch but the exhibit is about us.
‘A museum of who was once here.’
Prompts :
The exhibition is a test ground of the speculative worlds that could exist on the debris of this world – from decaying soot that falls to the depths of the oceans to be reclaimed by the life that lives below. From a range of ‘proto-type’ like sculptures we are envisioning a glimpse of what these entanglements could look like between us and the more-than-human worlds. Bringing us to imagine the artworks fictionally, what are they saying?
Throughout the exhibition there is emphasis on sensory perception which informed our prompts building up towards thinking sensorily with acoustic ecology. Using the book ‘Instructions for non-human listening’ by Louise Mackenzie and Hayley Jenkins – found within the exhibition’s reading space – we aimed to encourage the aural observation of the sounds experienced and how these enhance or change or add to the perception of the exhibition concept.
*In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, and elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work mainly like muscular hydrostats.
A tendril, on the other hand, is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape used by climbing plants for support and attachment, as well as cellular invasion by parasitic plants such as Cuscuta. There are many plants that have tendrils; including sweet peas, passionflower, grapes.
Writings
Sometimes the Glens Roar
Sometimes the glens roar, the bens skreich.
With humans aroon, naebdy heard it.
Noo, withoot humans aroon, naebdy hears it.
Shiftin rock thunders, stour tingles.
Wind and rain threap, while sun and soil cackle and crackle.
Watter babbles, and trees reply in moans and squeaks, cruins and creaks.
The grass wheeshts.
In ablo the ash, mycelium dances tae the thrum,
And spores soar throu the rhythm of the air that scatters ecstatic the sky blue.
And noo and then the glens roar.
by Alasdair Watson: Prompt 2 – sound
Beaker People
In my beaker, I become consumed, as I consumed.
The mycelium runs its fingers through my ashes, and begins to hold me.
It picks out plastic particles from my dust, and discards them, as I did.
“What is?” it asks. And I can’t explain them.
The mycelium gazes at me, inside and out, taking me in.
Spores nestle into me, where the plastics once were.
“What is?” it asks. And I can’t explain me.
Ashes and hyphae, I become more mycelium than me.
Mutation and hyphenation, carbon bonding sparks, mycofloral flickering.
We beaker people, consumed with consuming.
We fuse.
We flower. We flesh.
by Alasdair Watson: Prompt 1 – conversation with an artwork
By Maria C. Soroniati
To read Maria’s writing produced at our last session, click the link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SRLFZu6J5gUdH-ck5rzjRx-br67QBDN1/view?usp=sharing
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A-Js Notebook
Group Discussion
Thank you to everyone who came along and and contributed to the session.
The exhibition ‘Life Bestowing Cadaverous Soooooooooooooooooooooooot’ by Rae-Yen Song will continue until 18 May and is accompanied by a live programme event, so be sure to check out the remaining time. More information on the exhibition here: https://www.cca-glasgow.com/programme/life-bestowing-cadaverous-soooooooooooooooooooot
We are hosting [synonym] sessions writing events each month and have announced our third instalment taking place at the David Dale Gallery, date 20th April 2024.
All are welcome, we aim for this workshop to be casual and we aim for this group to give space for all voices, expertise and experiences and very much encourage people who wish to also develop their writing, however, previous art writing is not essential.
For more information and tickets to our next [synonym] session click here.
Gal bag. 