Cut Twice: Experiments in Kinetic, Interactive Sculpture

Abstract

This thesis support paper is an exploration of the process, creative influences and philosophical framework surrounding the creation of the body of work contained in the art exhibition “Cut Twice” (Gales Gallery, May 4-9, 2015). Alongside a narrative describing the making of a large pile of kinetic lumber, two main areas of consideration are discussed; firstly, the desire of the artist to create sculpture that is interactive, framed in part as an extension of a career in the community arts, and secondly, an inquiry into a radical materialism that sees all matter as entangled intra-activity through the lenses of Jane Bennett’s eco-political Vibrant Matter and Karen Barad’s Agential Realism. How might an expanded sense of the aliveness of matter (in this case off-cuts and discarded lumber from construction sites) change our relationship to waste and possibly to each other? If matter is a “doing”, not a thing, can interactive, kinetic sculpture express this material vibrancy and enhance an art viewer’s awareness of their relationship to matter?