Oxman: when to say why, and with the same breath, ask why not?
Critical theory is a skillful instrument when confronting analytically objects of cultural study, insofar as it suggests highlighting, making visible and discussing subsequent arrangements of the evident qualities that are on the table. In the case of the work that Neri Oxman develops will be very bright to grasp some approaches of Deleuze and Guattari.
The philosophers Deleuze and Guattari, recognized for proposing the rhizome as a structure of elaboration and epistemological organization that opposes and resists the dominant notion of center and reason — the rhizome being an organic model in which there are no hierarchies or taxonomies but an open map with plateaus in constant deterritorialization and reterritorialization; they allow us to delve into certain practices of creation that have been enriched with wisdom, knowledge and concerns that are peripheral or even ancestral to the greater discursive order.
In fact Deleuze and Guattari coined the term minor literature when examining the work of Franz Kafka, who chose to write in a major language, German, instead of in his own mother tongue, Czech; such displacement would highlight a certain textual sensation of distance, abstraction and exile with clear aesthetic, poetic and political implications.
Both concepts: rhizome and enunciative minority apply to the artist I want to introduce; But not without first pointing out that in Latin America something similar happens to us at various levels — first level, during colonization we were forced to speak Spanish, second level, on many occasions we choose for a major language, English, as in this article.
Although in Kafka, the vanishing point from which he narrates points to austerity as a primitive device in which experience is intensified — an experience that goes beyond its semantic formalization. Especially in Latin America the experience surpasses any attempt to representation, a trait that Gabriel García Márquez would popularize as magical realism; notion that although worn and innocuous today, it gave account of a particular chaotic cultural inaccessibility.
Now, the figure to which we will refer from now on will be Neri Oxman, an Israeli-American architect who heads an interdisciplinary research group at the MIT Media Lab, baptized by Oxman herself in 2010 as Mediated Matter.
His work has definitely shaken up the few bordering ruins that bordered on art, science, design, or engineering; consequently, his projects are considered of plural value and constitute a constant cognitive deterritorialization — reterritorialization, in the sense of Deleuze and Guattari.
That is, although they are ultra specialized biotechnological experiments, they have even been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5090
Neri Oxman’s Krebs Cycle of Creativity: The core of her proposal goes in line with seeking a different future for the planet’s inhabitants, inspiring us from the past and not ignoring the present so that instead of constructing buildings, buildings can grow as nature does and incorporate life to development itself.
According to Neri Oxman, Material ecology is “an emerging field in design denoting informed relations between products, buildings, systems, and their environment”.
“We often find ourselves creating solutions for problems we dont’t yet know exist. Rather than problem solve, we problem seek”. Neri Oxman
I would like to highlight in this article her installation Silk Pavilion, in which she used silkworms to self-make, leaving room for uncertainty; or her glass G3DP printer which is practically a molden glass sewing machine bbc.com/news/science-environment-35171408; or her collaborations in haute couture fashion with Iris van Herpen; or even in show business by creating a series of masks for Björk.
For Oxman, the participation of the organic as a possibility and power is transversal. In correspondence with the model proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, her methodology is rhizomatic: it branches, it overflows, it transforms. Oxman gave a TedTalk in 2015 ted.com/talks/neri_oxman_design_at_the_intersection_of_technology_and_biology and is the main character in the second episode of the second season of the Netflix original series “Abstract. Neri Oxman: Bio-Architecture”.
Today, in the midst of a pandemic crisis, it becomes even more evident that we must direct our efforts as a species to another place, the modern project peaked. Reconnecting with each other, with and for the planet will guarantee our own sustainability, well-being and progress. The past, present and future of humans will depend on our vision, innovation and empathy.
If you want more information about Neri Oxman, we recommend you visit their web portal oxman.com
Harry Febres.