IDEATE :: BONEDIRT

Saturday August 15th 2020

Reading Speculative Research with Jessie and Linda.

We began reading Unthought by Katherine N Hayles, but decided that we needed to look at some texts that enaged more with the idea of “speculative” consciousness and cognition. Katherine N Hayles makes a distinction between, in  a way the living and the non-living or the cognitive and the non-cognitive. While we are keen to read more about her ideas of cognition and consciousness, we ultimately found that the introduction to speculation in “Speculative Research” enlivened us and gave us more entry points to our project, specifically in terms of ideas about time (resisting the modern arrow of time) and the prolongation of the present, and the co-relation of speculation to governance, control, security and capital – and how to move speculaiton into the realm of the impossible, and the unknown.

We decided that we should perhaps begin by licking a rock!

We have some contact microphones loaned generously by Luke Harrald from Elder Conservatorium which we will begin to experiment with (making hydrophones by putting microphones into a condom (filled with mineral oil potentially) or a film cannister. Anyway, experimentation is on the menu. VB is playing with Jessie’s camera and will take a field trip to Hallet Cove next weekend.

Notes from today’s reading will follow.