Wilkerson, E (2024) Invasive Species. Doctoral thesis, Liverpool John Moores University.

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Abstract

This is a documentation of practice-led research into the proliferation of invasive species, a phenomenon analogous to colonialism and its accompanying systemic extraction and displacement of bodies, goods, and earth materials. Sylvia Wynter attributes this spread to the Enlightenment era centering of European man as the hierarchical pinnacle of intelligence. This separation of man from nature caused a rupture with vast indigenous and planetary knowledge that has resulted in species die offs and potential environmental and social collapse. It is an imposed monocultural approach, a term borrowed from agriculture to describe a field planted with a single species, forcing reliance on toxic chemicals to maintain it. Culture, as the cultivation of social spaces, reinforces this model. This is evidenced in Hollywood cinema by whom it offers power to and whom it depicts on screen. Dominant science as well by methodically separating the observer, and objects of observation. It is work in objectification. There are however other models of cultivation. Permaculture understands that plants thrive best within diverse communities where each works collectively to contribute to larger systems where the toxic measures of monocultured spaces are not needed. It is work in reciprocity. Wilderness is a dynamic form of permaculture. The colonial trope to name wilderness ‘uncultivated’ for not adhering to monocultural practices, was utilized to excuse mass theft, displacement, extraction, and murder in the Americas and the global south. Invasive Species aims to fragment this colonial invasion by attending to the following objectives: One, to research and name issues of monoculture documented in the archive and canon through spatial and temporal investigations of exemplary colonial events in history, literature, theory, natural sciences, art, and film, with the intent to amplify the systemic gaps created by colonial violence and its accompanying displacement. Two, to look for alternative epistemologies and ontologies in the counter-archive and counter-canon by focusing on work that engages permacultural modes of thought in science (Margolis and Lovelock, Vernadsky) and the cosmopolitical (Diprose, Ahmed), as an expansion of posthumanist theory (Wynter, Barad, Haraway, Federici). And three, to contribute to the counter-canon by expanding on Gramme L. Sullivan’s practice-led research methodology which takes an intersectional approach to knowledge (un)making by weaving between disciplines, proposing creative practice as a form of research, and modeling how to reconnect the subjective to the objective. Film is applied as the most effective medium for this work as it can reinsert the temporal into the spatial, as a resistance to the colonial separation of place with its history prior to invasion. The application of uncanny forms of time to image, story, and sound make space for systemic gaps to be witnessed and discussed in a manner that cannot be achieved through the written word alone. As contribution to knowledge, I propose the wilding of cinema, or, ‘feral filmmaking,’ which rejects modes of domination by rooting in the guerrilla methods of Third Cinema which made modest work to incite social and political engagement. A methodology that attends to further fragmentation of colonial invasion by (re)engaging with overlooked aspects of ceremony and storytelling. The former is activated with Deep Listening, as pioneered by Pauline Oliveros, and expanded by Dr. Elena Marchevska. It is ceremonial work rooted in wandering and open engagement with the sensorial to break through the culturally imposed barrier of objectification. And for the latter, Saidiya Hartman's "critical fabulation," which insists that fictional narration must be inserted into the archive to attend to its systemic gaps. As the working ledger of dominant culture, the failure to search out these stories becomes a cyclical reenactment of colonization. The resulting practice outcome is the hybrid documentary film, Strange Flower (little sister to the poor) which tests this methodology on a single region. It investigates the European colonization of its own border that occurred with the mass privatization following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the multi-ethnic multi-religious permacultural union of South-Eastern Europe, as parallel to other global colonial trajectories researched within the written document. As critical fabulation, the film moves between segments of documentary, and the fictional story of a witch in the Federician sense, not as an occult figure, but as a metaphor for the imposed division of human from land that emerged to justify early colonial invasion. Feral filmmaking works as a weed: tenacious, ever present, ever spreading, refusing to remain contained by borders. It offers a methodology of resistance that can be applied to future research and film practice. A framework for active-isms towards a new and wild cinema.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	invasive species; feral filmmaking; anticolonial practice; practice-led research; third cinema; critical fabulation; permaculture; Sympoiesis; Gaia Theory; wilding; essay film; decolonial art; witches; former Yugoslavia; cosmopolitical; hybrid documentary
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Divisions:	Art and Design
SWORD Depositor:	A Symplectic
Date Deposited:	04 Dec 2024 14:43
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2024 14:43
DOI or ID number:	10.24377/LJMU.t.00024931
Supervisors:	Johnson, M and Marchevska, E
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/24931

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