Teresa Connors, University of Waikato Part of CW15
The motivation behind this paper stems from my practice as a composer and my research as a PhD candidate at the University of Waikato. The majority of artifacts that result from this research are audiovisual installations that explore new relationships from an ecological perspective. In this context, the term ecological refers to the philosophical school of thought that believes the world to be a network of interconnected and interdependent phenomena. In an attempt to contextualize my research and explore new possibilities for creative practice, I have become interested in a number of theories and lines of thought. These include Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s Santiago Theory of Cognition, Andrew Pickering’s Dance of Agency, Karen Barad’s notion of Intra- Action, Jane Bennett’s idea of Thing-Power, and Timothy Morton’s Hyperobject. This paper presents these theories in the context of a creative practice that aims to engage with ontological considerations of interconnectedness. It investigates the interrelationships between living and non- living systems as process and structure, and their artistic potential for an empathic discourse by extending our human identity to include the larger biosphere.