Reflections on the rhizome “the line of ‘nomad’ thought”, the abolishing of hierarchical structures in the process of writing (or making). In psychoanalytical terms, Massumi explains, “The central perspective is…to promote human relations that do not automatically fall into roles or stereotypes but open into fundamental relations of a metaphysical kind that bring out the most radical and basic alienations of madness or neurosis.” A dissipation of constructed dualism in the cauldron of multiplicity. For the conscious embodiment of becoming we must be the sorcerer, the magician who, for Crowley, “brings all set ideas and judgments into question, which often makes him appear in a questionable light himself. As a creative creature, he knows no conscience.” Paths open are taken without judgment and what was hidden is revealed. Hierarchical laws imposing order are broken when convenient anyway, and are therefore grounded in hypocrisy. A clearer analysis of this feature of human law is proposed by Bataille, “When a negative emotion has the upper hand we must obey the taboo. When a positive emotion is in the ascendent we violate it.” Therefore the taboo is irrelevant when we follow our instinct. Becoming being our true state of instinctual negotiation, to always freely form alliances where borders to the known are sensed without the restriction of an external law. “A Thousand Plateaus is an effort to construct a smooth space of thought…an open system.” The human who is becoming unfolds the magic of life, and just like fellow animals negotiating nature, is free. Creative practice is, in essence, the space of becoming allowed to a select few. The continual work to reach a plateau which, as Massumi explains, is “when circumstances combine to bring an activity to a pitch of intensity that is not automatically dissipated in a climax…A Thousand Plateaus tries to combine conceptual bricks in such a way as to construct this kind of intensive state in thought…The way the combination is made is an example of what Deleuze and Guattari call consistency…a dynamic holding together or mode of composition.” The relevance of this text to painting is invited, “lift a dynamism out of the book entirely, and incarnate it in a foreign medium, whether it be painting or politics…pry open the vacant spaces that would enable you to build your life and those of the people around you into a plateau of intensity.” That’s my kind of bible.

Like a turtle paddling in the shallows I observed the sharks manoeuvre in the depths of an ocean made of language and questioned wether I really wanted to enter those depths and why? On the day I was there, speakers from the arts spoke in an intimate theatre. I wondered if there was any tension between the artists and animal activists due to the fine line between animal exploitation that some artists tread. The specialised audience created an expectation for dense theoretical papers, which I had not prepared for, my presentation being for a general audience. Video, photography and installation/performance were the preferred mediums to express animal/human relations by the artists, I was the only painter.

Indigenous culture was not mentioned at all in this session by artists. The animals involved were urban pets and farmed animals. My perspective of becoming animal is unable to disassociate from Indigenous culture because it informs my own relationship to animals which are indigenous or feral.

The artists who presented were:

• Bryndis Snaebjornsdottir
• Jessica Ullrich
• Yvette Watt
• Kathryn High
• Julia Schlosser
• Lisa Jevbratt
• Ionat Zurr

All women.

Steve Baker and Yvette Watt discussed photographs by a woman called Mary Britton Clouse.

A recent exhibition in relation to the theme involving some of the artists Becoming Animal/Becoming Human The work of Sam Easterson interested me the most due to the natural habitat context the animals were in when making the work.

I had the privilege of meeting associate professor Linda Williams and artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso at the conference.

I have been given the opportunity to present at the minding animals conference in Newcastle on the 18th July. The conference runs from the 13th-18th and is filled with local and international speakers from many disciplines discussing animal/human relations.
Below is my abstract.

Becoming Animal: Investigating painting materials and processes that communicate current animal/human relations in Australia

Deleuze and Guattari’s definitive philosophical essay 1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible 1987 examines symbioses between animals and human animals in popular mythologies. Their challenge to Western cultural constructions that view animal as other and becoming animal as a process of contagion is discussed in relation to my current practice-led research into the status of animals in Australian visual culture. My reflections on the human animal and becoming in Australian indigenous cultural traditions focuses on the study of animals in rock art and recent fieldwork in Gunbalanya, Arnhem Land. Comparisons between representations of animals in natural history illustration and indigenous painting in Australia seeks to discover the extent to which materials and creative process used in the production of imagery defines the relationship between the artist and their subject.