The Shape of a Knot: The Space Between Accumulation as Method in Art as Research: A Theory of Thought Fragments

Abstract

This thesis explores the potential of the mesh and knot as means of representing, and at times remediating, the fragmented nature of thought in Late Capitalism. It argues that our faculties of perception and understanding are today overwhelmed by digital schemas and data that obscure meaning and erode tactile understanding. Drawing on spatial dialectics and artistic practice this thesis proposes tactical means to combat these states: an epistemology of meshes and knots. It asks how the symbolic, intuitive knowledge of hand-formed material systems can be recuperated to remediate digitally-induced fragmentation in the Late Capitalist thought space?

The primary figure of Late Capitalism is accumulation. Accumulation is deployed as method in the artist’s life and work. Domestic pileups—plates of spaghetti, sieves, clutter—act as diagrams of noise and are material expressions of the cognitive effects of digital saturation.

Placed within spatial visual cultural theory: Serres’ ‘mass of cloud’ Lefebvre’s ‘production of space’ Benjamin’s ‘constellations’ and Buck-Morss’ ‘dialectics of seeing,’ the mesh and knot are a new epistemological addition to this scholarship. Forms that embrace the noise and multiplicity to collate–but not homogenise–fragments of knowledge.

Recalling experiences of motherhood, lockdown, encounters with artworks and the artist’s own accumulation, personal and the political interlace. Everyday materials such as bedsheets, thread, wire meshes, clay and foam are cast into objects that appear casually assembled but embody complex reworkings of space where form and formlessness coexist.

This thesis argues for the critical knowledge that emerges from interstitial sites. The mesh with its lines, voids and knots produces such sites of poiesis. In macro, the knot is a tool to understand the complex relationship between the digital and the everyday navigating the space between—digital/tactile, fragmented/whole to reclaim human knowledge within the machinic age.