Assemblages and Ecologies

At this session, two colleagues will discuss how their work has been shaped by assemblage theory, an account of the world as characterised by relationality, connection, and change.  The group will reflect together on the implications of a conception of ecology that exceeds (but can incorporate) human actions and processes.

Dr Lindsay Polly Crisp, Staff Tutor and Lecturer, Art History, will explore how assemblage theory, and in particular the Deleuzian concept of affect, configures her analysis of materiality, fragmentation, and disposal in the art event Break Down by Michael Landy (2001).

Dr Paul-Francois Tremlett, Senior Lecturer, Religious Studies, will explore the assemblage as a means of thinking through processes of change, emergence and decomposition. He will suggest that assemblages de-centre the sovereignty of the human subject with affective flows and interactions of places, non-humans, technologies, bodies and imaginaries. He will conclude by suggesting an affinity between assemblages and rituals.