Entropy and empathy : mediums of transformation : an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Fine Arts at Massey University, Pōneke Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In this creative practice-based PhD, bio-based plastics derived from plant and bacterial growth are developed into bio-based and biopolymer mediums for painting, site-responsive intervention, and collaborative moving image work. Research questions focus on the long histories of plant-based and bacterial bio-based polymers (bioplastics) within creative and industrial practices. These histories are considered in relation to non-Indigenous artistic, scientific, and colonial worldviews and through tauiwi understanding of the continuums of Indigenous sciences and futurities.

Diffractive practice generates material attention to the past, present, and future of these materials. As a Pākehā artist and researcher working here in Aotearoa and internationally, I work to develop material understanding of the differences within colonial and anti-colonial approaches to biopolymers and bioeconomy. This includes my own family history of involvement with biopolymers, within colonial and creative contexts, diffracted with feminist new materialisms, affect theories, Indigenous and non-Indigenous science (see e.g., Barad, 2003 and 2014; Braidotti, 2011; Colman, 2006; Haraway, 2008 and 2016; Gauld, 2014; add Massumi 1995; Ahmed 2014; Liboiron 2019; Boasa-Dean 2020; Stewart 2020; Mercier 2022).

This PhD research asks “what can we learn about the materiality and ethics of biopolymers when using methodologies of diffraction?” (Haraway 1992; Barad 2014; Bozalek & Zembylas 2017; Geerts & van der Tuin, 2016, Taylor 2019). My studio work explores a range of material effects and affects, including the four-dimensional (timebased) qualities of biopolymers. This is influenced by systems theory within painting, where picture spaces that have historically reflected dominant social and economic systems—foregrounding particular representations and abstractions of capital (Fraser 2014) —can decompose. Questions about the significance of such material transformation and transition are understood through processes of entropy and empathy.