CONNECTOR NODE FIELD
‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe’
John Muir
A participatory art project about connection.
Update April 2024:
Thanks to everyone who participated in connector node field. The CNF map is no longer live. The images below show where nodes were logged.
About connector node field
A network of nodes blooms on the surface of the forest floor. Look beyond the nodes and focus on the connections between them. Then look beyond the connections and see the patterns they make. The understanding comes in the spaces in between, in the relational forces that connect and move the points. Move a node and become an agent of change. Take a node and become a custodian.
Connector node field is a participatory art project. It asks us to consider how everything is connected, from the micro - the mycorrhizel network beneath the forest floor, where fungi join with plant roots to exchange nutrients and information, to the vast - where galaxies move together in unexplained patterns. The connections between us and the more-than-human world are complex and vital. We are all infinitely interconnected, and are but single nodes in a network.
The connector node field is representative of a sustainable, self-organising system. The movements of the field cannot be programmed but must emerge organically. I cannot transform the connector node field alone. I relinquish the power to change the field into your hands. I can log the actions, but I cannot make it act alone.
Take a node and become a custodian. Log a node on the map and provide the energy and spirit of participation to power the system. (Update April 2024: the mapping is no longer live. If you have node you would like to log, please email me directly. Thanks to everyone who logged a node.)
Making connector node field
Casting
Bibliography
Casting
The nodes are made from castable refractory concrete, a material normally used in locations such as industrial boiler and kiln linings. The nodes are cast into silicon moulds and left to cure for 24 hours. Once dry, they are biscuit fired.
Glazing
Bibliography
Casting
Each node is coated twice with an earthenware glaze, before a final firing. Earthenware is not indefinitely weatherproof, but the nodes have already been tested outdoors for several months and have shown little deterioration. They will not leave any trace in Kilsture Forest.
Colour
Bibliography
Bibliography
I often chose to work with yellow. In this project it has good visibility in the forest, and it's also common in nature, as demonstrated by the sulphur tuft fungi pictured above. Colour is important to my practice - David Batchelor's Chromophobia is a great book if you're interested in colour.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Bibliography
Some of the books that inform my thinking for this project:
Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer
Entangled Life Merlin Sheldrake
On Connection Kae Tempest
Sand Talk Tyson Yunkaporta
Thin Places Kerri ní Dochartaigh
The Xenofeminist Manifesto Laboria Cuboniks