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MANIFESTO
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Liquid life is an uncertain realm. The concepts needed
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to realise its potential have not yet existed until now. The
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hypercomplexity and hyperobject-ness of liquid terrains exceeds
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our ability to observe or comprehend them in their totality. Indeed,
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what we typically recognise as living things are by-products of
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liquid processes.
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Liquid life is a worldview. A phantasmagoria of effects,
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disobedient substances, evasive strategies, dalliances, skirmishes,
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flirtations, addictions, quantum phenomena, unexpected twists,
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sudden turns, furtive exchanges, sly manoeuvres, blind alleys, and
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exuberant digressions. It cannot be reduced into simple ciphers of
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process, substance, method, or technology. It is more than a set of
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particular materials that comprise a recognizable body. It is more
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than vital processes that are shaped according to specific contexts and subjective encounters. Yet we recognise its coherence through
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the lives of ‘beings’, which remain cogent despite incalculable
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persistent changes such as flows, ambiguities, transitional states
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and tipping points that bring about radical transformation within
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physical systems.
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Liquid life is a kind of ‘metabolic weather’. It is a dynamic
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substrate - or hyperbody - that permeates the atmosphere, liquid
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environments, soils and Earth’s crust. ‘Metabolic weather’ refers to
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complex physical, chemical and even biological outcomes that are
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provoked when fields of matter at the edge of chaos collide. It is a
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vector of infection, an expression of recalcitrant materiality and
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a principle of ecopoiesis, which underpins the process of living,
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lifelike events – and even life itself. These life forms arise from
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energy gradients, density currents, katabatic flows, whirlwinds,
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dust clouds, pollution and the myriad expressions of matter that
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detail our (earthy, liquid, gaseous) terrains.
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Liquid life is immortal. Arising from our unique planetary
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conditions, its ingredients are continually re-incorporated into
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active metabolic webs through cycles of life and death. Most
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deceased liquid matter lies quiescent, patiently waiting for its
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reanimation through the persistent metabolisms within our soils.
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Liquid life exceeds rhetoric. Its concepts can be embodied and
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experimentally tested using a trans-disciplinary approach, which
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draws upon a range of conceptual lenses and techniques to involve
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the liquid realm with its own ‘voice’. From these perspectives
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liquid technologies emerge that are capable of generating
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new kinds of artefacts, like Bütschli droplets, which are liquid
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chemical assemblages capable of surprisingly lifelike behaviours.
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These agents exceed rhetoric, as they possess their own agency,
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semiotics, and choreographic impulses, which allow us to value
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and engage in discourse with them on their terms. The difficulty
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and slippages in meaning and volition between participating
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bodies creates the possibility of en evolving poly-vocal dialectics.
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Liquid life provokes an expanded notion of consciousness.
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Its ‘thinking’ is a molecular sea of possibilities that resist the
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rapid decay towards thermodynamic equilibrium. In these vital
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moments it indulges every possible tactic to persist, acquiring a
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rich palette of natural resources, food sources, waste materials,
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and energy fields. These material alliances necessitate decisions
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that do not require a coordinating centre, like the brain.
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Liquid are non-bodies. They are without formal boundaries
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and are constantly changing.
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Liquid bodies are paradoxical structures that possess
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their own logic. Although classical laws may approximate
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their behaviour, they cannot predict them. They are tangible
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expressions of nonlinear material systems, which exist outside
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of the current frames of reference that our global industrial
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culture is steeped in. Aspects of their existence stray into the unconventional and liminal realms of auras, quantum physics,
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and ectoplasms. In these realms they cannot be appreciated by
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objective measurement and invite subjective engagement, like
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poetic trysts. Their diversionary tactics give rise to the very acts of
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life, such as the capacity to heal, adapt, self-repair, and empathize.
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Liquid bodies are pluri-pontent. They are capable of many
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acts of transformation. They de-simplify the matter of being
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a body through their visceral entanglements. While the Bête
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Machine depends on an abstracted understanding of anatomy
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founded upon generalizations and ideals, liquid bodies resist
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these tropes. Liquid bodies discuss a mode of existence that
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is constantly changing – not as the cumulative outcomes of
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‘error’ – but as a highly choreographed and continuous spectrum
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stream of events that arise from the physical interactions of
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matter. They internalize other bodies as manifolds within their
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substance and assert their identity through their environmental
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contexts. Such entanglements invoke marginal relations between
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multiple agencies and exceed the classical logic of objects. They
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are inseparable from their context and offer ways of thinking
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and experimenting with the conventions of making and being
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embodied.
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Liquid bodies invite us to articulate the fuzziness, paradoxes
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and uncertainties of the living realm. They are still instantly
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recognizable and can be named as tornado, cirrus, soil, embryo,
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or biofilm. These contradictions – of form and constancy –
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encourage alternative readings of how we order and sort the
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world, whose main methodology is through relating one body to
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another. Indeed, protean liquid bodies help us understand that
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while universalisms, averages and generalizations are useful in
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producing maps of our being in the world, they neglect specific
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details, which ‘bring forth’ the materiality of the environment.
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Liquid bodies are political agents. They re-define the
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boundaries and conditions for existence in the context of
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dynamic, unruly environments. They propose alternative modes
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of living that are radically transformed, monstrous, coherent, raw
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– and selectively permeated by their nurturing media.
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Liquid bodies invite us to understand our being beyond
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relational thinking and invent monsters that defy all
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existing forms of categorization to make possible a new kind
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of corporeality. They are what remain when mechanical
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explanations can no longer account for the experiences that we
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recognise as ‘being alive.’ |