jessie beier

ecologix

// artist in residence research-creation project, 2016 //

ECOLOGIX is a research-creation platform that was developed during an Artist-in-Residence position, funded by the Edmonton Arts Council as part of the City of Edmonton’s Art of Living cultural plan. During this AiR position, Beier worked with the staff and clients at ASSIST Community Services Centre, a community program that provides diversified services to Canadian immigrants and their families, to discuss and develop ideas that then formed the impetus for the larger ECOLOGIX platform.

Beier’s engagements with the active and diverse programs at ASSIST led to the development of a new branch of research-creation focused on exploring how connections are made (or not made) between individuals and groups, concepts and material ‘reality’, and systems of knowledge. The ECOLOGIX platform documents, experiments with, and builds on this research trajectory, offering both a site for refleXion and creation. 

“The earth is undergoing a period of intense techno-scientific transformations. If no remedy is found, the ecological disequilibrium this has generated will ultimately threaten the continuation of life on the planet’s surface. Alongside these upheavals, human modes of life, both individual and collective, are progressively deteriorating. Kinship networks tend to be reduced to a bare minimum; domestic life is being poisoned by the gangrene of mass-media consumption; family and married life are frequently ‘ossified’ by a sort of standardization of behaviour; and neighbourhood relations are generally reduced to their meanest expression… It is the relationship between subjectivity and its exteriority – be it social, animal, vegetable, or Cosmic – that is compromised in this way, in a sort of general movement of implosion and regressive infantilization” (Felix Guattari, 2000, 27).

Taking cues from Guattari’s ecosophic thought and his call for the creation of new ethico-aesthetic paradigms, the ECOLOGIX project included a range of diagrammatic and artistic “probe-heads,” or what Deleuze and Guattari (1987) think of as those “nonsignifying, nonsubjective, essentially collective, polyvocal and corporeal” (17) modes of organisation that are able to rupture dominant images of thought, not through modes of critique and negation, but through the formation of “strange new becomings, new polyvocalities” (190-1). The form of these probes varied, emerging from various exercises in experimental writing, drawing and digital animation, as well as through the development of three main artistic outputs which were exhibited throughout 2016-2017.

EXPERIMENTAL WRITINGS ( A SAMPLE)

loose ends

a dead end a means to an end all good things must end all's well that ends well an end in itself ass end of nowhere at a dead end at an end at loose ends at one's wit's end at the end of (one's) fingertips at the end of nowhere at the end of rope at the end of the day at wit's end be at a loose end be at the end of (one's) rope be at the receiving end be at wits' end be on the wrong end of be the end of (one) be the end of one be the end of the line be the end of the world be the living end be thrown in the deep end be-all and end-all be-all and end-all the beginning of the end beginning of the middle of the end the bitter end bring to a dead end burn the candle at both ends business end business end of business end of something by the end of the day cannot see any further than the end of one’s nose can't see beyond the end of nose can't see past the end of (one's) nose come out the little end of the horn come to a bad end come to a dead end come to a sticky end come to an end come to an untimely end days on end dead end dead-end end game end in end in itself end it end it all end justifies the means the end of end of one's rope at the end of play End of Story end of the ball game end of the line end run end to end end upend up at end up doing end up in the knacker's yard end up to become end up with end with end game ends ends of the earth follow to the ends of the earth for days on end for hours on end get end away get on the end of (something) get the short end get the short end of the stick get the wrong end of the stick go off the deep end go to the ends of the earth hind end hold end of the bargain uphold end uphold one's end in at the deep end in the end in the poorhouse it'll end in tears jump in the deep end jump off the deep end keep (up) (one's) end of the bargain keep end up know which end is up light at the end of the tunnel live up to end of the bargain living end living end the loose ends low-end make an end of (something) make ends meet make hair stand on end make one's hair stand on end never hear the end of never hear the end of it no end no end in sight no end of no end of something not know which end is up not the end of the world odds and ends on end on the receiving end open-ended play both end splay both ends against the middle play each end against the other play one end against the other pointy end put an end put an end to shitty end of the stick short end of the stick short end of the stick the short on one end smoke both ends of the cigar some loose ends tail end tail-end the be-all and end-all the beginning of the end the business end the business end of the end the end justifies the means the end of the line the end of the road the end of the world as we know it end of creation the sharp end the short end of the stick the tail end of the thin end of the wedge throw in at the deep end tie up (some/a few) loose end still/until the bitter end to that end to the bitter end to the end of (one's) days to the ends of the earth to the ends of the world to this end wit's end world without end.

DIAGRAMS + ANIMATIONS (EXCERPTS)

CO-CREATED WORK w/ STUDENTS + COLLEAGUES

EXHIBITIONS

related projects + links

EAC Blog Post: Artist in Residence Update

EAC Blog Post: ASSIST’s First Artist in Residence