Becoming With Art Differently: Entangling Matter, Thought and Love. (December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Thomson, Jody; Davies, Bronwyn
• Is Part Of: Cultural studies, critical methodologies. Volume 19:Number 6(2019)
• Page Start: 399
• Page End: 408
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Subjects: resonance -- sensation -- matter -- art -- encounter; Culture -- Research -- Periodicals; Popular culture -- Research -- Periodicals; 306.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1532708619830123
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1532-7086

Abstract

In this article, we put new materialist concepts to work in an experiment in thinking-with-matter. We write our way into an encounter with two artworks by Australian French Impressionist John Russell, hanging in an exhibition space at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In being-with and becoming-with the pictures, we go off the beaten track, not concerning ourselves with aesthetics, critique, meaning-making, or sociocultural conventions. We begin with W. J. T. Mitchell's question what do pictures want ? We extend his question, drawing on new materialist philosophers, to explore what is made possible when the matter of paint-on-canvas is encountered, not as inert, but as lively, affective, and intra-active. Our experiment moves to what happens in between ourselves as human subjects and the more-than-human matter of these works of art.