Vibrant Matter

The body as matter, the body as the outer casing of the “self”. Matter as a generator of though and as a continuum in which all biospecies and inorganic elements are intertwined and connected by a “vital materiality” running through and across them, as Jane Bennett suggests in her book Vibrant Matter.

Vibrant Matter draws on Donna Haraway’s metaphor of the cyborg, which shatters the rigid boundaries between animal, human and machine. In A Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway proposed a new political philosophy of the body, science, technology and feminism. Another important contribution is Rosi Braidotti’s theory of the posthuman condition, whose influence is clearly visible in contemporary art production, according to which distinctions between human and non-human agents are being blurred and replaced by the hybridisation and multiplicity of the subject.

In this philosophical context, where human beings are relinquishing their hegemonic position as the seat of all thought and knowledge and moving towards an expanded, flexible, multidimensional identity, Rosi Braidotti’s theory incorporates the female body as an essential element of this emerging nomadic subjectivity.

Vibrant Matter brings together artistic positions that explore the construction of other forms of female subjectivity and thought. To this end, it will be based on the physical interaction of bodies with plants, animals, minerals and machines, and on the creation of other possible images and assemblages of organic biomaterials and inorganic elements. In the era of posthumanism and non-anthropocentric thought, Vibrant Matter initiates a dialogue between the politics of the female body of contemporary technoculture and the traditional feminist critique of bodily representation. Structured in four programmes, the audiovisual cycle reflects on this “vibrant matter” in the context of experimental film, video art, digital animation and 3D programming.

Curated by: María Morata