Apropos Obsolescence

Apropos Obsolescence is the title of this PhD in visual art dissertation and exhibition. It is an exploration of how a human mind interfaces with and mediates both proximal space and the larger environment of planet Earth. How is the outside brought inside? What is mediation and how does it operate upon our consciousness? Within the exhibition explored in this text are several works that investigate mediation. The main work, Hexagraphy, is a rudimentary backlit screen; a sculpture that refers to a field of neurons using light. Neurons in the brains hippocampus region are active during movement as a component of our agency in connecting to the navigational aspect of consciousness. These neurons operating in grids are calculating our direction and placement in space as we move around. To engage with this information, I improvised a decentered geometry for some of the work in the exhibition. In other works, I included signs of the enormous physical forces that are in play on the planet, the non-local phased objects we are immersed within that are not easily represented due to their enormity, but that technoscience exposes. Two questions became evident to me through looking at both science and new materialist philosophy. The first is that following the digital turn, an extension of our senses aided by computation, it is clear that humanity exists contingently on planet Earth. Humanity was not the beginning and is not the end of evolution. Thus, upending any notion that any thing was created for us. Secondly, is technology as an end in itself helpful for humanity? Through its decentering of humanity and imposing an acknowledgement of contingency upon us, the entire realm of objects is paradoxically elevated. This decentering could be the only thing that saves our species from extinction. It may be the objects that save us. Hyperobjects like hurricanes and El Nino, or climate change in general are caused by a combination of cyclical forces. These large objects decenter humanity, and in my artwork, I want to emphasize the fact that I am a fragile human and not a machine.

Author dc:creator

• Wolstenholme, Colleen Dawn

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Singer, Yvonne

• Philosophy

Statement dc:rights

• Author owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10315/36251

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:yorkspace.library.yorku.ca:10315/36251