Index

Bodies of Water: In the Wake of Being & Becoming is a diptych (oil on canvas, each panel measuring 4' x 3') that was shortlisted for an arts-based competition on the theme of water organized by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies as part of the University-Based Institute for Advanced Study (UBIAS) Conference that took place on UBC campus in September 2013.

About the work: The word 'wake' has three definitions. Not only is it a noun for the track left behind a moving ship, it is also a verb meaning: 1- to become awaken (or to be roused from sleep), and 2- to hold vigil for someone who is deceased as an act of commemoration. Conceptually, it connects with Brian Massumi (2011) and Martin Heidegger's (2010) belief that the past, present, and future form a unity of relations while making reference to Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) notion of the rhizome; visually rendering the sense of aliveness that emerges in a transient, in-between space. As a moving subject on a continuous passage towards knowledge that is forever incomplete (Ellsworth, 2005), the wake has become a metaphor for my own being and becoming.

BEING & BECOMING

NATALIE LEBLANC

References

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Press.

Ellsworth, E. (2005). Places of learning: Media, architecture, pedagogy. New York, NY: Routledge.

Heidegger, M. (1953/2010). Being and time. (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Massumi, B. (2011). Semblance and event: Activist philosophy and the occurent arts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.