Table Of ContentKatve-Kaisa Kontturi
Ways of Following
Immediations
Series Editor: SenseLab
“Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic
thought has done its best, the wonder remains”
– A.N. Whitehead
The aim of the Immediations book series is to prolong the wonder sustaining
philosophic thought into transdisciplinary encounters. Its premise is that concepts
are for the enacting: they must be experienced. Thought is lived, else it expires.
It is most intensely lived at the crossroads of practices, and in the in-between of
individuals and their singular endeavors: enlivened in the weave of a relational
fabric. Co-composition.
“The smile spreads over the face, as the face fits itself onto the smile”
– A. N. Whitehead
Which practices enter into co-composition will be left an open question, to be
answered by the Series authors. Art practice, aesthetic theory, political theory,
movement practice, media theory, maker culture, science studies, architecture,
philosophy … the range is free. We invite you to roam it.
Ways of Following
Art, Materiality, Collaboration
Katve-Kaisa Kontturi
OPEN HUMANITIES PRESS
London 2018
First edition published by Open Humanities Press 2018
Copyright © Katve-Kaisa Kontturi 2018
This is an open access book, licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution
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Statutory fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Read
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Cover Art, figures, text, and other media included with this book may be under
different copyright restrictions.
Cover Illustration © 2018 Leslie Plumb
Cover Design by Leslie Plumb
Typeset in Open Sans, an open font.
Print ISBN 978-1-78542-059-7
PDF ISBN 978-1-78542-060-3
Freely available online at:
http://openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/ways-of-following/
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Contents
Introduction: … With … 7
Encounters
1. Breathing and Dancing 26
2. Work of Painting 47
Co-workings
3. Impersonal Connections 70
4. Autonomy of Process 82
5. Manual Labour 97
6. Zigzagging Art and Life 117
Sensations
Prelude: An Oral Triptych 130
7. The Grimacing Mouth 136
8. The Preaching Mouth 154
9. The Screaming Mouth 176
A Follow-Up: Three Propositions 191
Notes 203
Acknowledgements 234
References 238
Index 259
Introduction: … With …
To follow this book’s ethos and focus, let us begin … with art.
There are two women at an unidentified urban train station.
They wait, and discuss a work of art in the making. They are
both involved; a collaboration is in process. One is in front of the
camera, the other out of its scope. The voice outside the frame
suggests that this is not an ordinary documentary: ‘There is no
storyboard … it is not planned’ – instead, the project is open to
elements of surprise. The woman on camera agrees: yes, it is ‘a
lot more organic’ – implying that this video is true to the event
as it unfolds.
This excerpt is from the video Following Amie: The Artist at Work
(2015) that documents the daily life of Amie Anderson, an art-
worker who, among her other jobs, co-directs the artist-run
initiative ‘Food Court’ in Melbourne’s Docklands. The video
follows Amie through her diverse engagements, starting in a
wintery dawn in her bedroom, where she packs her bags for the
day. The collaborator shooting the video and following Amie is
artist-researcher Maria Miranda [Figure 0.1].
As attested by the conversation at the train station, the video
follows Amie’s day as it evolves. Capturing the sense of unrolling
– the non-scripted unfolding of Amie’s day – requires reciprocity
from the participants. Maria is not a director-follower in control
of the situation, nor is Amie accounting for her day as she
knows it. She is on the cusp of experience, facing what is to
come. Here, following is not about tracing an already-happened
8 Introduction: … With …
Figure 0.1. Maria Miranda (left) and Amie Anderson (right) in Following Amie: The
Artist at Work (2015) by Maria Miranda and Amie Anderson – a video filmed with
a smartphone on a selfie stick.
story or experience. It is about entering a wave of life unfurling;
about being taken up in its motion, moving with it – ‘“getting
into something” instead of being the origin of the effort’, as
philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1995, 121) puts it.1
In the video, this sense of following is created through images
and sounds recorded by the mobile phone on a selfie stick.
‘Being taken up’ in the wave of Amie’s day is actualised in
videographic movement that is ‘parallel to’ rather than ‘a step
behind’: the two women often walk side by side. This parallel
movement is enabled by the selfie stick; the camera is a step
ahead of the women walking – it is, then, less a point of leverage
between the follower and the followee than an ‘intercessor’ in
attunement.2 An intercessor, according to Deleuze (1995, 125),
is more than a mediator: it has creative powers as it enters into
