Atmospheric—Making
Taking turbulence as both conceptual driver and organisational strategy, this paper gathers together recent drawing, installation and performative works, and examines the dynamics of this collection, articulating the forces at play. Turbulence is understood as forceful and transformative, occurring in the space between, and as a result of, dramatic changes in pressure. Projects are developed through an experimental practice of “atmospheric–making,” accreting particles across a range of scales to the point that these individual constituents become subsumed within a larger atmospheric condition. This two-way dynamic between the particular and the atmospheric seeks points of tension, where new qualities emerge from the interplay between particles and systems.
Three modes of crossing–between the particular and the atmospheric will be discussed. The first is developing relations between material and immaterial media to inhabit a threshold position between these two. Secondly, these (im)materials are used to activate spaces of betweenness, drawing attention to these liminal zones. The final crossing–between aims to disrupt a clear and defined epistemology, instead privileging an approach that embraces uncertainty, vagueness and changefulness.
These approaches question the idea of a defined and knowable world that is able to be captured through representational techniques. In place of this is a bodily process of figuring out, requiring immersion and active participation in making sense of atmospheric conditions. This bodily engagement results in blurring a distinct sense of self, and challenges participants to take part in a process of co-formation between environmental surrounds and distributed presence.
Chris Cottrell is an artist with an architectural background, who works primarily in installation and performative art contexts. He is currently investigating ideas of atmosphere, turbulence and thresholding as research towards a practice-based PhD at RMIT University, where he also lectures in the Interior Design programme. He has shown work extensively in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom and held artist residencies in Piran, Slovenia; the Orkney Islands, Scotland; and Fox Glacier, New Zealand. Creative projects are archived at www.make-do.net.