Kim W Wilson

Gelatine, Elizabeth Grosz & Charles Darwin the continual recognition of nature and culture through one another

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Out there, and I will follow continues to become. Withdrawing from the edge, gathering itself up behind a rinding section a fine darkened line has settled where horizontal and vertical pause above a bovinal seam of liquefaction. Drip drip…drip drip…drip drip…it beats out a fetor into the greying surface that rises to meet it from beneath. It is a surface without surface or surface with many surfaces; of time as change.

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Introduction In a previous analysis (Wilson 2011) of the themes of duration and transformation in the writings of Social and Cultural Anthropologist Tim Ingold and the Philosopher Henri Bergson, I discussed how the ideas of both scholars challenge the ʻ hylomorphic modelʼ1. (Ingold 2010a, p.2 cited in Wilson 2011, p.2) Bergsonʼs theory of duration addresses our experience of time as not being something abstract, measureable and linear but as one of change2. (Hale 2006, p.56) Ingold folds Bergsonʼs theory into his own model of the world that is, ʻ…continually coming into being…that is, of formative and

transformative processes.ʼ (Ingold 2008, p.6 authorʼs emphasis cited in Wilson 2011, p.12). He proposes a world of ʻ thingsʼ (human and non-human materials) rather than objects, in which the former is open to and embedded in the processes of change while the latter is closed off and exterior to these processes. (Ingold 2010, p.4 cited in Wilson 2011, p.2). While undertaking the research for that analysis I was struck by an overlap with some of the ideas postulated by Feminist Theorist Elizabeth Grosz and lacking the necessary space to explore this at the time it is to Grosz that I will now return. Through the work of Charles Darwin, Grosz examines the relationship between nature and culture, proposing as alternative to the oft stated or implied one of opposition and domination, one of a continual recognition of culture and nature through one another. It is with Groszʼs ideas that I will explore the biography of one element of, and I will follow (2011) a work installed for the RSA New Contemporaries 2011 show; that of bovinal gelatine.

                                                        1 A predominantly Western world‐view, in which form originating as an idea in the mind, is imposed upon matter. Form is the manifestation of culture and of intellect while matter is the inert stuff of nature, waiting passively to be manipulated at will. (Wilson 2011, p.2) 2 ‘There are changes, but there are underneath the change no things which change: change has no need of a support’. (Bergson 1946, p.147 cited in Hale 2006, p.56) 

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Darwinism through Grosz

Grosz uses her re-examination of Charles Darwinʼs theory, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection3 to challenge basic assumptions underpinning the dualism of the hylomorphc model; that nature and culture are binary opposites wherein the former is dominated by the latter. Grosz points out that Darwinism clearly contradicts the perception of nature as something inert and passive, for such a model could not account for the differentiation and change that occurs in evolution:

Natural selection…leads to divergence of character for more living beings can be supported on the same area the more they change in structure, habits, and constitution, of which we see proof by looking to the inhabitants of any small spot or to naturalised production. (my emphasis, Darwin 1996, p.105 cited in Grosz 2005a, p.21)

Nature is thus ʻdynamic and activeʼ and by extension non-teleological. In other words there is no end point, purpose or goal that underpins evolution. (Grosz 2005a, p.8, p.31) Grosz suggests that Darwin offers a theory of ʻbecomingsʼ, one that takes in the cultural as well as the biological, citing Darwinʼs application of natural selection and evolution, to the origins and evolution of languages as an indication of his unwillingness to, ʻ differentiate between natural and cultural systems.ʼ4 (2005a, p.2, p.26-27) Therefore, Grosz posits

                                                        3 Within a species there is variation between individuals, these differences are then passed on by means of sexual reproduction. Heritable variations will either facilitate or prevent a species from adapting to the environment t will lead to its extinction or continuation  ‐ in other words the species will either continue to change with and within an environment that continually changes or it ceases to do so and death ensues. (Renfrew, C. & Bahn, P. eds. 1991, p.24) 4) “The formation of different languages, and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously the same…We find in distinct languages striking homologies due to the community of descent, and analogies due to a similar process of formation…Languages, like organic beings, can be classed in groups under groups, and they can be classed either naturally according to descent or artificially by other characters. Dominant languages and dialects spread widely to lead to the gradual extinction of other tongues. A language, like other species, when once extinct, never…reappears. The same language never has two birth‐places. Distinct languages may be crossed or blended together. We see variability in every 

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via Darwin, that as part of the same system, nature and culture should not be perceived as being diametrically opposed and hierarchical but rather that the natural should be regarded as, the ʻ provocation of cultureʼ. (Grosz 2005a, p.52) That nature, in itʼs constantly shifting state produces forces to which culture must creatively respond in order for it to continue, not in a state of static fixity but in a process of ceaseless ʻ self-overcomingʼ. (Grosz 2004, p.242)

Aurochs and humans: evolution and domestication

The gelatine element of, and I will follow, (see Figures 1 & 2) is bovinal in origin, composed of the collagen extracted from hides and bones of cattle.

(Gelatine Manufacturers of Europe 2011) A cursory glance would categorise these as natural materials. Oxford Dictionaries (2011) defines that which is natural as being, ʻderived from natureʼ, and certainly gelatine has its origins in what we would commonly conceive as being part of nature; the animal, cattle in this instance. There is the implication that this material has reached the point of human consumption with the minimal of interference from humans. That in it some bizarre way cattle have been lining up outside distribution centres in order to give over gelatine. However, the designation, ʻ naturalʼ belies the complexity of the relationships that this material is embedded in.

European cattle are the domesticated descendent of Aurochs who are likely to have evolved from an earlier ruminant 1.5 – 2 million years ago. Evidence of its progenitor exists from the Palaeogene, 65-23 million years ago, and domestication is believed to have begun 9,000 years ago. (van Vuure 2002, p.5 cited in Maas 2011; Métais et al 2001, p.242) Itʼs origins in the Palaeogene precede those of Hominidae, the order of primates from which modern humans are directly descended. (Myers, 2001) Over this vast period of time the Auroch and its antecedents evolved in the absence of, or                                                         tongue, and new words are continually cropping up, but as there is a limit to the powers of the memory, single words, like whole languages, gradually become extinct…The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.” (Darwin, C. 1981 vol.1, p.60‐61 cited in Grosz, E. 1999, p.7‐8. 

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alongside human beings and their ancestors. While their evolution was not dependent on humans, they did have a role, namely in their domestication,

Figure 1 Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [installation view] bovine gelatine, peat charcoal and water.

Figure 2 Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [installation detail] bovine gelatine, peat charcoal and water. 

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that was accompanied by changes in their biology, including a decrease in size to what we would now recognise as being the standard for Eurpean cattle. (Davis, S. 1987, p.135) There is however, evidence to suggest that domestication wasnʼt a unidirectional force applied by humans to animals. Boivin (2008) states that while the domestication of animals and plants was going on there was also a concurrent domestication of humans, evidenced in the changes in human skeleto-muscular structure in terms of its increased gracilization. These morphological shifts occur at the same time as increasing human sedentism, greater population pressure, technological, dietary and environmental changes. (p.199-200) As Boivin points out there appears to be

a complex interplay of shifts, between the human, animal and environment rather than one factor determining all the others.

Gelatine

Focusing on the bovinal gelatine more specifically, it is advertised on the Gelatine Manufactures of Europe website (hereafter referred to as GME) as being, ʻthoroughly natural and healthyʼ. (GME 2011) However, its designation as, ʻnaturalʼ glosses over the industrial processes involved in order to get from cow to gelatine. It ignores: the husbandry of the animal; the method of slaughter; its butchery; the selection of hides and bones for their pre-treatment with lime in order to separate out the connective tissues (a process taking several weeks) followed by extraction using warm water, cleaning through filtration, thickening using vacuum evaporators to get rid of excess moisture and its setting and drying, ʻ under strict hygienic conditionsʼ, and finally its grinding up into granules. We are reassured that the, ʻquality and purity of the gelatine is ensured by detailed quality controlʼ. (GME 2011) It would appear that it is the wide array of industrial processes to which the cow carcass is subjected that makes the gelatine a reliably, ʻpure natural proteinʼ. (GME 2011)  

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It is in granular form that it reaches my studio, categorised by its ʻ bloom strengthʼ, (Figure 3) indicating the firmness of the gelatine when a standardised proportion of 7g granules to 275ml of boiled water is mixed and dissolved using that particular granular size. (GME 2011)

Figure 3: Dry bovine gelatine granules

It is a way of imposing or controlling an outcome, a predication of its future. A period of exploration follows in which I play with the proportion of granules to liquid. I count and measure, boil kettles of water, pour and wait for the mixture to set, or not; at its most firm and caramel brown it can take my body weight and at its weakest it is colourless and cannot retain the form of the mould into which it was poured. On this spectrum of experiments, there is a colour and consistency that holds my attention, a colour that hovers between the lightest honey and urine, and a freshly set surface that shudders and ripples the vibrations of immediate footfall. This is the state that was reproduced as part of the work installed in the RSA. I was aware from studio experiments that the gelatine would begin to blister, mould, liquefy and dry up, and (Figures 4-7) I knew that this would also happen in the gallery, but could not predict the rate

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at which it would do so due to atmospheric differences between the two sites. However, it became clear that the process of syneresis was accelerated as a result of the (constant) elevated temperature of the RSA interiors.

Does the gelatineʼs final destination in a gallery render it ʻ culturalʼ? In agreement with Groszʼs line of thinking I would answer ʻ noʼ. In a 2007 interview Grosz states,

Nature or materiality have no identity in the sense that they are continually changing, continually emerging as new. Once we have a dynamic notion of nature, then culture cannot be seen as that which animates nature. Nature is already animated, and culture borrows its energy from nature. (Kontturi & Tiainen 2007, p.248)

Certainly, gelatine is a material that I selected for my own purposes however, that choice was based on the properties that this bovine by-product exhibited. Such properties are an entanglement of cultural and natural processes, both emergent within one another, bringing with them all the changes from the Palaeogene to its presence in, and I will follow. A presence that continues to be in transit as the hot gelatine solution cools, sets and changes state again as the temperature of the gallery is gradually recognised in the materialʼs composition. It is a relay of motion, a ʻbecoming of unbecomingʼ. (Grosz 2005b, p.4)

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Figure 4: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail] Blistering of gelatine

Figure 5: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail] Mould covering gelatine

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Figure 6: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail] Liquefaction leading to slippage of gelatine

Figure  7:  Wilson,  K.  (2011)  and  I  will  follow  [detail]  Syneresis  of  the  gelatine,  leaving  it  in  a hardened state

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Conclusion What Grosz offers is a way of thinking about the kinds of materials that I seek out. As with other materials that I have selected for use in work: peat ash, peat charcoal, lard, silk and lanolin, gelatine comes with a history, prehistory and future of transformations. However, this is not to deny that all materials have histories, but rather the ones that I am choosing, their organic composition and the ways in which they are incorporated into subsequent work, are perhaps bringing the durational elements of the materials to the fore. Not foregrounding in the sense of presenting them but rather as means

of allowing the work to retain a degree of slipperiness. Of representation Grosz states that, ʻits purpose is to slow down, to make outlines of things ʻ, (Kontturi & Tiainen 2007, p.248) and it is precisely these ʻoutlinesʼ that I have the desire to resist. The future necessitates the endless entanglement and flux of culture and nature; a nature that must be ʻopen-endedʼ in order that culture too may become and un-become so that it can become again. (Kontturi & Tiainen 2007, p.248) Groszʼs re-examination of Darwinʼs Theory of Evolution that challenges the oppositional hierarchy that nature and culture are frequently slotted into and provides a framework for thinking about the decisions I am making in relation to materials and their deployment. However, I am aware of some dissatisfaction on my part with my decision to leave the gelatine in and I will follow, to rot in the gallery. Although ideas around change of states and duration are important to my methodology and methods, I am uncertain whether this needs to be so physically and visually apparent in the work itself. Does it become a mere visual explanation of a process rather than retaining the slipperiness and ambiguity that I would like the materials to evoke? To address this I need to give greater consideration to the materials that I choose to use and investigate those that have a greater degree of stability but whose

origins remain organic. It is also worth addressing the possibility of removing or replacing work or elements of work at a certain point in its exhibition, thus

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exerting greater control over how much the beholder is witness to any changes in state.

List of References Bergson, H. (1946) The Creative Mind, p.147. Cited in Hale, J. (2006) Gottfried Semperʼs primitve hut: duration, construction and self-creation. In Odgers, J., Samuel, F. & Sharr, A. eds. Primitive: original matters in architecture. London & New York, Routledge, pp. 55-62. Boivin, N. (2008) Material Cultures, Material Minds. Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press. Darwin, C. (1981) Decent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp.60-61. Quoted in: Grosz, E. (1999) Grosz, E. (1999) Darwin and Feminism: Preliminary Connections. Humanities Research Group Working Papers [Internet], Vol. 8. Available from: <http://www.phaenex.uwindsor.ca > [Accessed 19th March 2011] Davis, S. (1987) The Archaeology of Animals. London, Batsford Ltd. Geerts, E. (2011) Forcefully subverting or reinforcing dichotomies? Elizabeth Groszʼs feminist rereading of Charles Darwin, via the perspectives of Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.academia.edu/Papers/in/Elizabeth_Grosz> [Accessed 31st March 2011] Gelatine Manufacturers of Europe (2011) About gelatine [Internet], Brussels, Gelatine Manufacturers of Europe. Available from: <http://www.gelatine.org/en/about-gelatine/manufacturing/raw-materials.html> [Accessed February 9th 2011] Grosz, E. (1999) Darwin and Feminism: Preliminary Connections . Humanities Research Group Working Papers [Internet], Vol. 8. Available from: <http://www.phaenex.uwindsor.ca > [Accessed 19th March 2011] Grosz, E. (2004) Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution and the Untimely. London & Durham, Duke University Press. Grosz, E. Time (2005a) Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Australia & New Zealand, Allen & Unwin. Durham & London, Duke University Press. Grosz, E. (2005b) Bergson, Deleuze and the Becoming of Unbecoming. Parallax [Internet], Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.4-13. Available from: <http://tandf.co.uk/journals> [Accessed 20th January 2011]

Ingold, T. (2008) Bindings against bountaries: entaglements of life in an open world. Environment and Planning [internet] Vol. 40 (8), p.6. Cited in: Wilson, K. (2011) duration as transformation. MFA paper. Edinburgh College of Art Ingold, T. (2010) Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials [Internet] Working Paper 15, p.2) Cited in: Wilson, K. (2011) duration as transformation. MFA paper. Edinburgh College of Art Kontturi, K. & Tiainen, M (2007) Feminism, Art, Deleuze, and Darwin. An Interview with Elizabeth Grosz. NORA-Nordic Journal of Womenʼs Studies, Vol.15, No.4, pp.246-256. Maas, P.H.J. (2011) Aurochs - Bos primigenius: The Sixth Extinction [Internet]. Available from: <http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct> [Accessed 7th April 2011] Métais, G. et al. (2001) New remains of primitive ruminants from Thailand: evidence of the early evolution of the Ruminantia in Asia. Zoologica Scripta [Internet], Volume 30, Issue 4, pages 231–248. Available from: <http://www.thaiscience.info> [Accessed 5th April 2011] Myers, P. (2001) Hominidae [Internet], Michigan, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Available from: <http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Hominidae.html> [Accessed 7th April 2011] Oxford Dictionaries (2011) natural [Internet]. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Available from: <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com> [Accessed 6th April 2011] Renfrew, C. & Bahn, P. eds. (1991) Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice. USA, Thames & Hudson. van Vuure, T. (2002) History, Morphology and Ecology of the Aurochs (Bos Primigenius) [Internet]. Available from: <http://members.chello.nl/~t.vanvuure/oeros/uk/lutra.pdf> [Accessed 7th April 2011] Wilson, K. (2011) duration as transformation. MFA paper. Edinburgh College of Art

Bibliography Ausch, R., Doane, R. & Perez, L. (n.d.) Interview with Elizabeth Grosz [Internet] New York, Cuny Graduate Center New York. Available from: <http://www.gc.cuny.edu> [Accessed 29th March 2011] Bachelard, G. (2002) Earth and Reveries of Will: An essay on the imagination of matter. Dallas, The Dallas Institute Publications. Blyth, I. & Sellers, S. (2004) Hélène Cixous: Live Theory. London & New York, Continuum Press. Chamarette, J. (2007) Flesh, Folds and Texturality: Thinking Visual Ellipsis via Merleau-Ponty, Hélène Cixous and Robert Frank. Paragraph Vol.30, No.2, pp.34-49. Grosz, E. (1993) Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray in the Flesh. Thesis Eleven [Internet], No.36, pp.37-59. Available from: < http://aaaaarg.org> [Accessed 20th January 2011] Grosz, E. (2002) Architecture from the Outside. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, MIT Press. Jay, M. (1993) The Downcast Eyes: The denigration of vision in twentieth century French thought. London & Berkley, University of California Press. Jones, R. (1985) Writing the Body. Toward and Understanding of lʼÉcriture feminine. In Newton, J. & Rosenfelt, D. eds. Feminist Criticism and Social Change [Internet]. Available from: <http://webs.wofford.edu> [Accessed 2nd March 2011] Neimanis, A. (2006) A Feminist Deleuzian Politics? Itʼs About Time. Topia [Internet] Vol. 16, pp.154-158. Available from: < http://pi.library.yorku.ca> [Accessed 4th April 2011] OʼSullivan, S. (2007) Art Encounters: Deleuze and Guattari, thought beyond representation. Hampshire & New York, Palgrave & Macmillan. Stewart, S. (2002) Poetry and the Fate of the Senses. London & Chicago, Chicago University Press.

List of Illustrations Figure 1: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [installation view]. Authorʼs

own photo. Figure 2: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail view]. Authorʼs own

photo. Figure 3: Dry bovine gelatine granules. Authorʼs own photo. Figure 4: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail]. Blistering of gelatine.

Authorʼs own photo. Figure 5: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail]. Mould covering

gelatine. Authorʼs own photo. Figure 6: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail]. Liquefaction leading to

slippage of gelatine. Authorʼs own photo. Figure 7: Wilson, K. (2011) and I will follow [detail]. Syneresis of the

gelatine, leaving it in a hardened state. Authorʼs own photo.