Conference Programme FULL (1)

Feeling Like a Plant
Lin Charlston
Parasitic exploitation of plants by humans is ecologically disastrous but acknowledging plants as agents and active partners
is equally problematic . Mechanistic world models see human agency operating in a passive world, and traditional
hierarchies place humans above nature. However, New-Materialists reposition humans as unexceptional life forms,
reconstruing agency as an interactive process. Bennett refers to ‘distributive agency’ in which multiple subjects are
considered to cause an effect.
Moving towards a more reciprocal and ethical realignment, my research initiates participatory encounters with plants. I
am proposing a quasi-scientific, interactive installation based on the ‘phantom-limb’ phenomenon. Cognitive
neuroscientist Henrik Ehrsson has shown that people identify with a dummy hand if they watch it being stroked and
simultaneously feel their own hand being stroked. My installation ‘Feeling Like a Plant’ is a mechanical device which
strokes a dummy hand onto which a plant is grafted. Simultaneously, the device strokes a participant’s hand which is out
of sight. The perceptual illusion of feeling that you are partly a plant counters the established view of plants as passive
objects.
The Luckybag of Life:Can we appropriate William Burroughs’ aleatory cut-up techniques to gain insights into
our personal lives?
David Colton
This paper shares recent discoveries from my practice-led research into whether aleatory art techniques can be adapted
to create insights into our own personal realities; with particular reference to the cut-ups of the writer William S
Burroughs.
The focus will be on my interactive artwork- The Luckybag of Life. This work attempts to find solutions to personal
questions or problems by matching them with random cut-up texts; the aim being that the unconscious mind will strive
for answers, using the texts as a primer. This artwork is one of several that I have made which explore how we can adapt
chance art techniques to affect our personal realities.
The premise of my research is that new insights come from making connections and that often, more obscure links can
create the most interesting insights. David Bowie, who used the technique to create song lyrics, suggested that his cutups
gave him insights into his future, while Burroughs believed that cut ups are a juxtaposition of what is happening
externally and in the unconscious mind.
The writer and academic, Stephen Karcher suggests that the ancient Chinese divinatory system, The I Ching, works by
acting as a mirror for unconscious forces, shaping a given problem or situation. My suggestion is that cut-ups can do the
same thing and this is explored in the The Luckybag of Life.