Ryan/draft project proposal

Thesis Project Proposal

Structurally, I am interested in creating a chaotic system that represents this crossroad. (elaborate on which crossroads) Taking inspiration from the works of Stan Douglas, The Otolith Group, Chris Salter and Italo Calvino — I would like to create a non-linear narrative that offers a variety of stories that address travelling through the conceptual space of the posthuman. I would like to create a system of places, humans, non-humans, and stories that can interchange reflexively, in effect creating a system that can create a narrative that could never end, or be different everytime it is generated. These stories will consist of lore of speculative fiction that talks to the coming time of our existence. In consistency with my work of last year (and in the spirit of Guattari’s idea thief) I will appropriate texts, concepts and works of others and build new ideas and connections within them. Also I am interested in exploring perspectives of narratives from non-human agents. Also, I am interested in a sort of hypothetical documentary/fiction, where “thoughts and things, exterior and interior, are captured in the same texture, in which the sensible and intelligible remain undistinguished – a transformation of the opposition between real and representation, between original and second-order copy”. Within this odd narrative there could be a sort-of hero journey, where an intelligence is seeking out the meaning behind its existence. Similar scenes could play out over and over with subtle changes that reflect getting closer or further away to the “goal” of the journey — or multiple varied descriptions are told eventually summing to be descriptions of the same place. Additionally, I would like to explore sensorial thresholds that form the perception of the body and its relationship to space — for the purpose of elaborating on the permeability of the boundaries of perception of the human body, akin to the ideas above regarding the dislocation of consciousness. “To encourage sensorial transience in the visitors, they also shake the stable self, remove the ability to hold onto something in the world, obscure easily defined borders between subject and object, visible and felt, perceived and imagined. Whereas the confusion of utter darkness plunges one visitor into “ absolute nothingness, ”another seems almost liberated in experiencing a transitory burst of ephemerality”

Sigrún´s feedback:

- Talk about what form this work will take (installation, VR, interactive film)....

- Here is also a guideline that Steve gave us which is helpful to organising the proposal: [Graduate Proposal Guidelines]

- You have some "..." - are those quotes?

- Maybe elaborate on posthuman - and I really liked the text in the thesis outline about the pre-future activism/rebellion - would also fit in here I think.

- could maybe include some utopia/dystopia