we are not (yet) what we will become

A Grix

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

we are not (yet) what we will become Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/12579t68t

Abstract

This paper is a written component to accompany the thesis exhibition, we are not (yet) what we will become. This writing discusses relationships between bodies, vessels and tubes as an extension of my ongoing interest in similarities between vessels and bodies. Metaphors using vessels and bodies often have sexist or gendered undertones in which the maker of a vessel is a male master or god, and the material and the vessel is a woman, beholden to the whims of the maker (i.e. I am the potter you are the clay) I noticed that in the dynamic between vessels and bodies, a third component often comes up–which is what I am calling a tube. I first noticed this tube when I was looking at stirrup vessels, which is a vessel where the spout connects to a handle and the handle and the spout and the body of the pot are all connected–so it becomes confusing as to which part of the vessel is which. The vessel and the tube connected looked visually similar to a Klein Bottle. I did some research to see what (if any) writing existed about stirrup vessels, or if stirrup vessels are compared to or connected to Klein Bottles. I came across the research of the anthropologist Claud Lévi-Strauss who identified a connection between tubes, bodies and vessels, and legends of origin. To describe this relationship, Lèvi-Strauss explains that the legends of origin take the shape of the Klein bottle and describes the roles of the bodes, tubes and vessels. The shifting tube-body-vessel relationship is a way to understand ourselves and others so that we can still be human bodies even if we or others are shifting and changing. I focus on sensation–what it feels like to be in transition, rather than what it looks like. In the final portion of the paper, I connect the tube, body, and vessel relationship to the future, where I focus on pleasure and sensations as a way to create space to imagine new ways of being

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