OpenPROCESS #11: Jenna Sutela

The White Building
Thur 1 Dec 2016
7 - 8.30pm
FREE, please RSVP here

Orgs: A Many-Headed Reading

>Observe: Physarum networks are slow, much slower than plant or animal networks and very much slower than silicon computing
>Comment: But their circuits are self-growing and self-repairing, producing systems tolerant to interruptions or failure
>Comment: Repeated exchange between environment and organism rather than a centralized program or algorithm
>Observe: Stable relationship is maintained through active discourse
>Conclude: Here, the law of competition bows before collaboration

Jenna Sutela presents a performative, sonic transcription of material from her forthcoming publication Orgs: From Slime Mold to Silicon Valley. The many-headed reading will be joined by Clara Jo, Emily Jones and Ming Lin.

The publication focuses on decentralized organisms and organizations. It expands upon work that Sutela has been producing over the past couple of years, layering contemporary organizational charts, or organizational mazes, and the navigational intelligence of Physarum polycephalum, the single-celled yet “many-headed” slime mold dating to the Proterozoic eon.

The reading, like the publication, will be experimental, partly simultaneous; bringing together multiple voices around questions related to a technological future which may be headed toward a neo-biological civilization. As part of her residency with SPACE, Sutela will discuss key questions driving the project, and open public debate into the modality of the investigation.

Jenna Sutela’s installations, text and sound performances seek to identify and react to precarious social and material moments, often in relation to technology. Her work has been presented, among other places, at ICA London, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and writing published by, for example, Fiktion, Harvard Design Magazine and Sternberg Press. Sutela’s residency takes place at The White Building, London’s centre for art, technology and sustainability.

OpenPROCESS is a platform that responds to process-led practice. The series explores artistic production as a framework for discussion, investigating what it means to foreground process as the subject of display and exploration.

Supported by The Finnish Institute

Drinks sponsored by Jarr Kombucha
With thanks to Adam Laschinger and Musarc