AIR WORKS EMILY PARSONS-LORD AIR WORKS: Air as material in contemporary installation and performance art in a time of climate emergency Emily Parsons-Lord A thesis in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Art & Design Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture January, 2021 Thesis/Dissertation Sheet Surname/Family Name : Parsons-Lord Given Name/s : Emily Kathleen Abbreviation for degree as give in the University calendar : PhD Faculty : Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture School : School of Art & Design “AIR WORKS: Thesis Title : Air as material in contemporary installation and performance art in a time of climate emergency” Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE) Air is a politically incisive material in the climate emergency. Transcending national and political boundaries, air activates a power dynamic distributed asymmetrically between users (breathers/protesters), carbon contributors (polluters), and those of our elected rank (policymakers). This thesis proposes air as a new aesthetic of the climate crisis. This practice-led research (re)considers the creative potential of the material of air in contemporary art and performance through experimentation with its physical components and affective qualities. Air simultaneously and uniquely embodies lyrical imaginative thinking and physiological experience. The research draws from contemporary artists Latai Taumoepeau, Teresa Margolles, Katie Paterson and Olafur Eliasson, as well as the artist’s own extensive body of work. Developed alongside the dissertation are artworks, or AIR WORKS, that critically interrogate the embodied material reality of the climate crisis and the creative possibilities of feminist perspectives. Across four installation and performance works, the material of air narrates evolutionary pasts, maps the dimensions of the current climate crisis, and imagines possible ongoing climate futures. This dissertation connects air to material feminisms, exemplifying the co-constitutive nature of language and material (Alaimo and Hekman). Air’s invisibility demonstrates material feminisms as it facilitates normal physical, emotional and intellectual functioning as well as eliciting imagination. Critical feminist perspectives underscore the material investigation of air (Star, Dunn, Puig de la Bellacasa, Neimanis) and the climate crisis aesthetic (Yusoff and Gabrys, Wazana, Tompkins, Wynter). Storytelling as feminist practice (Haraway, King, Le Guin) assembles speculative pasts, presents, and futures, and imagines creative feminist alternatives. The AIR WORKS and this dissertation make important contributions to new knowledge by expanding an understanding of air as material through the innovative manipulation of the chemical and biophysical components of air in performance and installation. The AIR WORKS present air as a potent aesthetic of international power relations relating to the climate crisis. This research demonstrates that air creatively invents and shapes feminist climate futures. Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents a non-exclusive licence to archive and to make available (including to members of the public) my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known. I acknowledge that I retain all intellectual property rights which subsist in my thesis or dissertation, such as copyright and patent rights, subject to applicable law. 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Candidate’s Name Signature Date (dd/mm/yy) Emily Parsons-Lord 12/1/21 Table of Contents List of figures iii Acknowledgements v Abstract vi Chapter 1: An introduction to air thinking 1 1.1 Introduction 3 1.2 The physicality of the material air in art 11 1.3 An urgency in air 13 1.4 Situating the research 15 1.5 A disciplinary context for considering air 17 1.5.1 Art context 17 1.5.2 Environmental humanities context 37 1.6 A feminist perspective on the material nature of air 42 1.7 Outline of chapters 43 1.8 How to read this dissertation 54 Chapter 2: Air as material 56 2.1 Introduction 58 2.2 Feminism as method 59 2.3 Material and materiality 69 2.3.1 Air as material in relation to the body as material 72 2.3.2 Air materiality 74 2.4 Material feminisms 80 2.5 Different Kinds of Air, a Plant’s Diary 83 2.6 The linguistic: storytelling 86 2.6.1 Different Kinds of Air, a Plant’s Diary: some stories of the airs 89 2.7 Decentring the human: materials in deep time and planetary scales 95 2.7.1 Donna Haraway: sympoiesis and naturecultures 95 2.7.2 Astrida Neimanis: water and bodies 97 2.7.3 Kathryn Yusoff: coal and racial mattering 101 2.8 Things Fall Apart 103 2.9 Decentring the human: a look to the future 111 2.10 Conclusion 113 Chapter 3: Air as politics 116 3.1 Introduction 118 i 3.2 Our Fetid Rank (Margaret Thatcher’s bottom lip and Bill Clinton’s Tongue) 120 3.2.2 Audience experience of the work 126 3.3 A politics of air 128 3.3.1 Containment of air as political object 128 3.3.2 Air as boundary object 130 3.3.3 Art as boundary object 133 3.3.4 Air-commons 137 3.3.5 Air as Infrastructure 142 3.3.6 Responsibility for maintenance 148 3.4 The condition of the current climate crisis 149 3.5 Didacticism as feminist act 151 3.6 What does aesthetics mean in the climate crisis? 153 3.6.1 Graphs, diagrams,