How to know? What is transmitted as knowledge and how? 

This means also : How can I be sure to know? Is knowledge objective? And Do I know which knowledge shapes me? 

What do I know ? And what is beyond my knowledge? Can I get rid of what I already know?

Is knowledge information? From where of from whom I get “in-form” ?

Which information leave traces in my body and perception?

Which exchange processes occur between my inner and the outer world, without them being recognized, determined or relativized by me?

I was raised under two currents that influence my way of knowing, thinking and feeling, and this two currents were in a constant conflict inside of me. 

One of this currents is the western anthropocentric thinking, that separates the mind and the body imposed by science since Cartesian dualism and the affirmation that only what is proved by science can give us an “objective” and therefore “true” view of the world. 
The second current is the believe and experiences from the population of the country that I come from, which is Perú. This believe differs in many cases from western canons. A kind of view  that was part of our culture before colonialism and  it is still part of our culture nowadays.

During the project I made a journey through the boundaries of what I know and what I can learn anew. 

In my artist practice, as well as in my theoretical research for this project I explore the intimate relation that exists between myself and others matters that surrounds me, like everyday discarted commodities and nature made objects as well as the range of materialities that we use to build and to produce objects.

Through my research I compare challenging insight in science about perception, agency, materiality, experience, and how the interaction between us and the world is an interconnected web of activities that go far beyond of our control, with the cosmogony of the Shipibos to make visible that empirical experience is a way to investigate and grasp the phenomena that govern our way of life. Working constantly with different materials, media and methods that set me out of my comfort zone with the aim to go beyond the boundaries of what I already know and let my bodily experiences and intuition guide my doing. 

Exploring empirical experience as a new ground from where I can know.

I always find poetry very connected to art. In both of them , there is  an experimental and sensible approach towards what is given. These are both artistic expressions in where thoughts, words and images are part of  fluid system  that goes beyond mere description.

In the Sonnets of Orpheus,  poems written by Rainer Maria Rilke, Orpheus is the symbol of humanity in absolute connection. Perceiving the world without desire, with humility and admiration for every part that constitutes the whole.  He enters the other realm, a mode of being in which all human dichotomies (animate/non animate, life/death, human/non-human) are reconciled in an infinite wholeness. A return to the simplest human experiences of breathing, feeling, with all senses, beyond though.  A reborn to „the natural condition“.

A condition in where the body and all is senses made the first cognitive approach, independent from language which allows us to categorize what our body experienced.

In trying to communicate the pre-linguistic experience of embodied consciousness, my practice focuses on forms of mute expression that can be experienced through visual images, but also through a bodily engagement with space and the objects in it.  As well as with the idea that there is infinite web of interaction in between all entities that conform this world. A flow of a constant exchange of information between what we call opposites e.g. material and virtual, organic and inorganic, animate and non animate, etc. 

But how to reach “the natural condition”? and What does it means ?

The poems are connected to the cosmo-vision of the shipibos in where an interactive communication occurs between humans, plants, animals and all other matters ans entities which constitute their world (Madre Tierra). In this cosmology mythical stories affirm the existence of spirits or phenomena that control and determine their life in one way or another. Their universe shows vitality and in it everything is animated. Every material or physical entity has its spiritual counterpart and the real and the imaginary are complementary. 

Parting from this point I try to perceive and to act under the frame of thoughts of this ethnical group.  Taking this point of view as one that is closer to this “natural condition”.  What it means for me an open encounter far from fixed ideas and pre-conceptions. To reach this kind of state it was necessary to leave my impulse to control and to have a pre-idea of what to do and how to work. Leaving a space for chance and experimentation.

Working with scores that undermine the knowledge that I already have about materials and processes that I used to work with. 

These scores were based on time sets and the use of one single tool (10 min for work with a given tool, 2 min to add the leftovers again to the main object) or a repetitive process in between a certain time, i.e throwing the clay ten times against the floor. Other scores were to work with new materials as clay and metal and new media as video and painting. Such various scores allowed me to make from a position of one who does not know what the final project will be in before hand. These activities permit chance and transformation to happen. Accumulating and creating data enhance also the use of this hands-on process of making.

Another score was to work with new materials as clay and metal and new media as video and painting. The importance of these experiments was a way to take time off of my habitual modes of making, questioning my patterns of working. The attitude of not having a fixed idea of what to make is steadily accompanied by a desire for learning through the material. Connecting with the search for an understanding of matter through an embodied consciousness before codification. 

In Addition to the scores, I worked in different locations: 

my studio, room 320 at school, the plain at school,  the residency at Werkwarenhuis and again in a new space on the ground floor for the final graduation show. 

This changes allowed me to place the objects coming from these experiments together every time in a different constellation, enabling a spatial interchange between the pieces and myself. A constant change of the placing of the pieces starts to happen until specific connections between them appear based on differences as well as similarities in materiality, shape, size, specific spatial details and color.

This project marked a turning point a in my understanding of the knowledge gained through logical thinking or empirical experience and therefore the way I was working until then. 

After the experiments made to suppress my control, I learned that practical research gives the possibility to engage my body and its sensorial capability in a different more intimate manner. This manner could be also closer to this “natural condition” of perception in where the matter in “itself” is connected under universal organized information in where all relations between divers kind of matter is equal and in constant transformation. The active part of sensing is also a source for investigating possibilities of enactments in where “chance” plays an important role.

I believe this position can allow us also to explore and question our understanding of settled canons of knowledge, representation activities and reality. And personally let me experience that there is a web of interconnected information that flows through every single part that constitutes the whole, and this goes far beyond of my control.