Towards a theory of algae sympoiesis in performance

: cooking-with ecologies

Abstract

This thesis develops the concept of ‘cooking-with algae’ as a material-discursive approach to collaborative human-nonhuman artistic research. My aim is to create new tools for working with nonhuman ecologies in performance that challenge anthropocentric narratives of consumption. My methodology develops through a series of practical experiments conducted with algae during the course of this project. These experiments are referenced throughout the thesis and can be viewed, alongside video documentation, in the accompanying practice component to this submission: The Algae Cook Book (ACB). This thesis is structured according to three different ‘cooking methods’ that compose three of its four main chapters after the methodology: rendering, extracting and curing. In each chapter the method provides the ecological basis for my investigations into human-algae processual relationships and the framework for how my creative experiments and analysis seek to rework anthropocentric paradigms in performance. The three main thesis chapters follow the same structure in relation to each ‘cooking method’: the first part explores anthropocentric representations of human-algae ecologies in terms of dominant narratives and systems of human consumption. The second part considers dynamics of nonhuman representation and agency in an algae based artwork, followed by an analysis of four practical experiments where I explore how different ‘cooking apparatuses’ operate as tools for collaborative algae-human artistic practice with reference to examples in the ACB. The third part considers how these practical experiments highlight the vital role algae agencies play in transforming environments and what new forms of narrative are generated to this effect. Throughout this research, I employ Karen Barad’s (2007) theorisation of apparatuses, as material-discursive tools that shape both the researcher and outcomes of experimentation, to question the process of knowledge production with nonhumans and to develop four different ‘cooking apparatuses’ as tools for embodied creative inquiry with algae: language, technology, bodies and documentation. I draw on Donna Haraway’s (2016) concept of ‘sympoiesis’ to propose that the new narratives generated through my practical experiments demonstrate examples of what I theorise as ‘algae sympoiesis’. ‘Algae sympoiesis’ encompasses an eco-dramaturgical approach to performance where new modes of entangled storytelling exemplify how human-algae interdependencies operate as forces for ecological change.

Date of Award	15 May 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Roehampton
Sponsors	Roehampton VC Scholarship
Supervisor	Joshua Abrams (Director of Studies), Leslie Hill (Co-Supervisor) & Jennifer Parker-Starbuck (Co-Supervisor)