‘Poruous Stitch’ is an Arts Territory Exchange research sub-group headed by Laura Davidson, Carly Butler and Gudrun Filipska researching ideas around contemporary forms of networking, knowledge sharing and modes of caring collaborative production in relation to remote and wilderness spaces (both digital and geographic). The title of the group reflects a number of our shared research interests: the stitch as process of healing - the medical dissolvable stitch, as-well as the implied ripping open in a process of productive ‘discursive antagonisms’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Also maritime motifs; the dropping of knots as a measure of distance at sea and the writing on eco-feminism (Neimanis 2017) set against the practical dangers of porosity and leakage.

Pourous Stitch also references certain types of fabrics such Gortex (breathable ‘outdoor wear’) as metaphor for our gauges of preparedness for wild spaces, both physical and digital. This is reflected in how the language of the sublime slips into our everyday digital lives (Davidson 2018) - where we are apparently ‘deluged by data’ and receive ‘torrents of information’ when we inhabit the internet.

The language of the sublime in the digital suggests both places of safety and terror - Legacy Russel’s call to ‘Usurp the body! Become your Avatar’ identifies digital spaces as a places of safety for transgender, queer, disabled and non conforming bodies. Where also zones of conspiracy, cruelty and terror of the outside (Andrew Culp 2016) use the same language as these spaces of liberation and slippage towards dangerous Neo-right wing agendas.

We are interested in how artists and writers develop tools and networks to navigate these polarised terrains.

Refs.

Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Verso 1985.

Bodies of Water. Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology. Astrid Neimanis. Bloomsbury 2017.

A horizon that only offers disarray for James Irwin: The Edge. Skelf online project space. Laura Davidson. 2018.

Glitch Feminism; A Manifesto. Legacy Russell. Verso 2020.

Dark Deleuze Andrew Culp. University of Minnesota Press. 2016.

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Recent notes on refusal…

Prior to the pandemic Hito Steryl drew attention to economies of presence calling for the refusal of established routines of the contemporary-art-world ( international travel for art-fairs, openings, talks, and residencies) by reimagining their relationship to presence as 'junk time'. These refusals are also demonstrated in Tell them I said no (Herbert)and Art Strike (Home 1990-93).

As cultures of mediation and proxy through technological interfaces become ubiquitous (the designing and development of which has been 'accelerated in a way that only a global-crisis could achieve),' there are many opportunities emerging for artists to circumvent the need for physical presence. However, a recent survey commissioned by UCL suggested artists were not willing to accept digital versions of cancelled residencies/ events during lockdowns, revealing that many artists do not want to seek new ways to be present. This attitude contrasts with the experiences of members of the Arts Territory Exchange, who, due to issues of remote living, caring responsibilities, agoraphobia or for environmental reasons have already refused the expectation to be present in order to present, or discuss art. 

As a group we would like to explore ways in which artists refuse and interact with contemporary expectations of presence .
One way is to be distributed via text. In 2011 Wesseling claimed that artists turn to research as a way to refuse the expectations of the art-market. This is perhaps why more artists are pursuing writing-as-practice; a connection shown by Caduff & Wälchli’s (2019) book ‘Artistic Research and Literature’. It could also be that writing as an art-practice becomes a refusal of what Fisher defines in ‘Capitalist Realism’ (2009) as ‘post-lexia’; a state where traditional literacy becomes useless in a world that is full of never-ending stimuli. Art writing means the possibility of multiples or proxies of the artist's thought, removing the need for the artist to be present. 

Another refusal is of distance, both refusing to accept it(digital connectivity and proxy) and refusing to travel it (eg non conforming bodies in disability and illness) ideas to be discussd through projects using Avatars and pedometric technologies such as S Project (Filipska, Butler) and work by members of the ArtsTerritoryExchange, who, due to issues of remote living, caring responsibilities, agoraphobia or for environmental reasons have already refused the expectation to be present in order to make, or discuss art. 

These projects also have the ideas of refusal written into them interms of their production, with the idea of artists and publics as DIY software-developers, creators of interfaces and digital objects bypassing the economies of the digital commerce field.