What stories does an object hold? What could it tell? What remains unsaid but matters nonetheless? In which encounters could it unfold in unexpected ways? How might this change the stories? As matters of fact? Speculatively?
The Implosion Method Research Group brings together Vanessa Amoah Opoku, Harry Beardmore, Thea Josepha Konatsu, Benjamin Egger, SueJin Hong, Ines Kleesattel, and Barbara Preisig. Over the course of one year this group of artists, writers, and researchers discusses and develops experimental practices for object research.
The Implosion Method serves as a starting point. Formulated by Joseph Dumit in reference to Donna Haraway, the Implosion Method is a proposition for interrogating an object in terms of its multifaceted material, historical, sociopolitical, technological, physical, symbolic and affective contexts, thus unfolding its polyphony: In what ways does this object relate within the world? How does the world matter within this specific object?
Each member of the group has selected an object guiding their individual research. Some objects are part of an ongoing project, others, still unfamiliar, are the beginning of an open-ended inquiry.
A dried cacao bean,
to witness and practice with you — connecting people, shifting shape and direction: from south-north towards equal and horizontal.
An emerald,
a material formed through pressure, fracture, labor, and movement.
The painted portrait of Petronella Merens (and her fake curls), 1712,
who’s face I cannot really read. One moment I feel it is more disgusted and distancing; the next, skeptical; and then maybe unsure (or even a little frightened?). Are you presenting your curls to me in a cheeky way or do you want to get rid of the wig and rather feel the sun and the cooling breeze on your baldness, which you are also showing me quite blatantly?
A tree that was felled by beavers and fell into the river Limmat,
I am just in love with you. In this very otherworldly way.
The Qingdao beer bottle,
a multi-relational landscape of stories that sit across borders: geographical, national, cultural and species-based.
The shed of a dice snake,
a thing found at the shore of Lake Zurich, which actually has a beautiful texture, but the horror keeps creeping up on me – and with it, all this biblical baggage of misogynistic myths of origin.
The blue lights of Turbinenplatz in Zurich West,
illumination of the space at night, situated between an architecture of power and a stage-like use of the urban space.
In two three-day retreats and several online workshops we are testing, questioning and queering artistic, literary, theatrical, and scientific practices of material encountering and object-driven storytelling. Contributions in the form of text, image, sound or film will be created along the way and published in Brand-New-Life magazine. These contributions will take the form of materials, reflections, and speculations.
The Implosion Method Research Group is an initiative of Barbara Preisig and Ines Kleesattel and part of Barbara Preisig’s IfCAR Project “Polyphony. A Speculative Approach”.