#368-75 Murmuration

I have done the work by pounding my fists multiple times in the wet filler.

Murmuration is the word for when starlings engage in flocking behaviour, probably because of the humming sound they produce. Any organism gathering in large numbers tends to act similarly according to certain collective principles. For example, even humans have been demonstrating this at protests when crowds suddenly react to sudden noise like gunfire. Flocking can also be modelled quite realistically with algorithms using three basic rules: Separation (avoid crowding neighbours), Alignment (steer towards the average heading of neighbours) Cohesion (steer towards the average position of neighbours).

The power of the people has always been in their ability to act collectively. Perhaps this behaviour is less dependent on subjective and conscious decisions and more on something else - and more elusive. Intuitive factors like beauty and rhythm could be taken more into account when rising against oppression.

This series consists of works with impressions from pounding the wet filler with my fists. Pounding can be a way to process and shape a physical material. The expression "to pound the table" means to assert one's opinion or to protest against transgressed or threatened boundaries. This points to a convergence between artistic production and political activism, to insist on attempting to bluntly shape a (reluctant) reality according to one's will.

Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.

Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.