University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2017 Laughter, inframince and cybernetics - Exploring the Curatorial as Creative Act Doove, Edith M. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/10382 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. Laughter, inframince and cybernetics Exploring The Curatorial as Creative Act by Edith Maria Doove A thesis submitted to Plymouth University in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Transtechnology Research Faculty of Arts and Humanities School of Art and Media January 2017 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. AUTHOR’S DECLARATION AND WORD COUNT At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award without prior agreement of the Graduate Committee. Work submitted for this research degree at Plymouth University has not formed part of any other degree either at Plymouth University or at another establishment. Word Count of Main Body of Thesis: 72.785 Signed…………………………………. Date……………………………………. 2 Contents Copyright statement - 2 Author’s declaration and word count - 2 Abstract - 5 Acknowledgements - 7 Illustration - 10 Marcel Duchamp, Door: 11, Rue Larrey (Porte: 11, Rue Larrey), 1927 Introduction - 11 The approach of this thesis - 12 Chapter structure - 13 Some keywords - 19 Use of own writing - 20 Use of current literature - 21 Contribution - 22 1. Wat vooraf gaat (The foregoing) - 23 1.1. The permeable membrane - 23 1.2. Confusion and conundrum - 25 1.3. Further literature on the curatorial - 32 1.4. Curating in the non-human world - 33 2. Method – The Opaque Lens - 36 2.1. An imaginative leap – Whitehead and Stein - 37 2.2. Notions of rhythm - 39 2.3. Avoiding bifurcation - 45 2.4. Stein and Duchamp - 48 2.5. Ways of organising - 51 2.6. Diffraction - 56 3. Laughter - [Reasons to be Cheerful, Part Three] - 62 3.1. Laughter and messiness - 63 3.2. Studies of laughter - 66 3.3. Taxonomy of laughter - 73 3.4. Laughter at the turn of the 19th century - 76 3.5. Jarry, Dada and laughter - 81 3.6. Laughter and knowledge transfer - 85 3 4. Inframince - The Observed Unobserved - 89 4.1. Minor vs major - 89 4.2. ‘Ontstaansgeschiedenis’ of the inframince - 93 4.3. The inframince notes - 96 4.4. Smoke and mirrors - 99 4.5. Inframince in critical literature - 101 4.6. Most recent contributions on the inframince - 112 5. Cybernetics – Fluid Networks - 117 5.1. Bateson, Duchamp and cybernetics - 118 5.2. Oulipo and cybernetics - 124 5.3. From cybernetics to affect - 128 5.4. Cybernetics and becoming - 131 5.5. Cybernetics and time - 139 6. The Creative Act – Inframince as operative tool - 142 6.1. Inframince and the minor - 142 6.2. Inframince and affordance - 144 6.3. Inframince and a practical application - 147 6.4. Narrative medicine - 150 6.5. Media studies and ‘togetherness’ - 152 7. The inframince in action - 155 7.1. Preamble – Wunderkammer model and Warburg - 156 7.2. A literal presence of the inframince – Lyotard’s Les Immateriaux - 160 7.3. Duchamp as curator - 161 7.4. Fluxus and other examples of playfulness - 163 7.5. Learning from artists – Wolfgang Tillmans - 170 7.6. Own practice – case study “in action” - 172 7.7. The importance of conversation - 176 7.8. Spot On, Platform P at the Duke and others - 180 Conclusion - 189 Contribution - 191 Further research - 195 Bibliography - 196 Appendix - 214 Overview of presentations, seminars, exhibitions 2010-2017 - 215 Overview essays and reviews 2010-2017 - 218 Essays - 220 Reviews - 239 4 Abstract This thesis identifies and responds to a contemporary impasse in the curatorial, which is thought of as the realm that encompasses curating as a complex action and interaction; a verb that includes the conceiving, organising and executing of exhibitions as well as critical thinking around curation as a discipline. The current impasse in curation the thesis responds to is caused, on the one hand, through its rapid expansion since the late 1980s and, on the other, through its mainstream and populist appropriation, which confuses understandings of it. The thesis proposes a strategy for the recovery for curating’s most basic work of ‘taking care’ and situates the curatorial as a creative act. It adopts Duchamp’s inframince as an artistic concept, and uses it as a lens to reveal the role of the speculative, poetic and absurd, the personal and subjective and the instant of emergence of creativity in curatorial practice. This facilitates an essentially diffractive methodology as well as a textual method of ‘an imaginative leap’ through friction, rhythm and repetition, building on Whitehead and Barad, (among others) to connect ideas of non-linearity and relay in (art) history. Opening up this rich meshwork thus allows for a reconnection of the curatorial to its original provenance and connoisseurship. The poetic investigation of an invisible force, the inframince, which is seen as instrumental to the curatorial and meaning making in general, is underpinned by the investigation of two other major, intertwining narratives – laughter and cybernetics. This liberates the inframince’s versatility and makes it potentially an operative tool, following Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming minor and O’Sullivan’s interpretation, within a wider trans-disciplinary framework of art-science collaborations. Through this discussion, the thesis then reaffirms the curatorial (as it is intended here) as a practice that shapes the collaboration between specific human and nonhuman elements: the curator, and the artist (and/or scientist) and texts, artefacts, spaces and time. 5 6 Acknowledgements Phew, this has been quite a ride! Little did I know what this PhD process would actually entail when I decided to move to Plymouth from Belgium in 2010 to join Transtechnology Research. I had been in touch with Prof. Dr. Michael Punt since about the beginning of 2009 when I was working on a major research and exhibition project for the University of Leuven on the collaboration between artists and scientists that I had called Parallellepipeda. Part of this three year long project was a conference and I was advised by Jan Baetens of Literary Theory and Cultural Studies at the University of Leuven to invite Michael as the keynote speaker as he was editor in chief of Leonardo Reviews and convenor of Transtechnology Research at Plymouth University. And so I did invite him and he luckily said yes and with that started our exchange. I told him about my longheld desire to start a PhD in order to properly reflect on some aspects of the curatorial process and my practice. And he was, together with the late and sadly missed Dr. Martha Blassnigg, interested in my proposal. They invited me over to Plymouth to attend and contribute to one of their seminars and I sensed that I had found what I was looking for – a group that did not specialise in the curatorial but instead in the transdisciplinary, a wonderful mix of people, disciplines and interests. When not much later my job and my home came to an unexpected end I decided to jump and move. Little did I know… It was, however, not so much the research and the writing that caused the anxiety over the years. If anything that was exactly what pulled me through while trying to survive as a self-funded part-time student in a foreign country, dealing with the adventure of sustaining myself and my studies through various jobs. The unexpected illness and subsequent death of my father Kees Graaf halfway during my research track left me without an important intellectual sparring partner. Sadly I cannot physically show him the fruit of our endless conversations. The final year turned out to be extra challenging when in January 2016 I suddenly had to move house after more than five years, right at the start of my writing up process, 7 and had to pack up all my carefully laid out research and books. To this day I still haven’t been able to unpack my full library and find the box containing catalogues that I published or contributed to over the years. The EU referendum of 2016 did not help either to make this writing up process a quiet one. It saddens me more than anything to have witnessed the vote to leave the EU as this thesis is very much about a strong believe in ‘togetherness’ and openness. The new American presidency forms in this respect another challenge. Which in the end made it all worthwhile was the research, reading and writing over the past six years that are now drawn together in this thesis to form exactly the kind of reflection that I so dearly sought. I count myself extremely lucky to have found such an excellent intellectual home in Transtechnology Research with Prof. Dr. Michael Punt to support me throughout it all. So thanks in the first place to him and Martha for taking me on board, and for the great in-depth discussions that not only always brought me back on track, but which also led to new insights.