‘Conatus’ as a Creative Force
It seems to me that the aesthetics of coherence and self-organisation of dissipative structures such as crystal formations, vortices etc are beautiful on the surface but might also carry within them a kind of poetic translation potential for understanding some deeper aspects of what it is to be alive in the world - perhaps giving us a deeper insight into the nature of space-time, energy and matter which constitute the fabric of our own being and the underlying dynamics of the more than human world in which we live.
I have been fascinated by emergence and non equilibrium as a creative force since a memorable meeting with a ten foot tornado at the top of a mountain in Wales some twenty years ago. Just as friend and I finally reached the summit in hellish weather this massive dust devil the size of a prize-fighter licked around a boulder with a loud crack, fizzing and sucking at the earth with its hungry trunk then lunging at my companion, knocking him to the ground before dashing itself on a granite slab, dissipating with a gritty splash and hiss …. and was gone.
The experience stayed with me, the twister seemed so real and alive yet its solidity was an illusion, more climatic than corporeal, just grainy space entwined in a fleeting embrace… but then aren’t we all? Current Holobiont theory reminds us that while we may appear to be singular material entities moving through time in reality we are ecosystems of entangled agencies, existing in the present as a patchwork, stitched together with bread and breath - an unspeakably complex field of processes through which matter is continually churning- akin to a dance (to borrow the beautiful image from T.S Eliot’s Burnt Norton) - “at the still point of the turning world”.
By casting various sculptural studies on this theme of emergence i propose a residency that would provide the time, and technical expertise to develop a practical relationship with hot bronze and / or provide an opportunity to explore affective potential of crystalline glazing- a complex and fascinating process which is the ideal manifestation of ‘Conatus’, that philosophical concept used by Spinoza and others to describe a kind of vitality or innate generative impulse that is not limited to organic life.
