Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Olivia Aguiar

One of the most difficult aspects of our existence is to make sense of it

Like volcanoes, ghost nets (abandoned fishing nets) constellated throughout Sao Miguel's oceans, co-mingle forces categorically defined as oppositional (Ghost Gear Removal Competitions") (De Wolffe). In "Plastic Naturecultures," Kim De Wolffe problematizes the ghost net, pointing to the coral, reef fish, and sea slugs seeking refuge on its tendrils. Here, cultural plastic purification discourses are troubled, as to remove the net is to expose the creatures to the prey of the open sea. In my work, I weave deconstructed cables from my grandfather's old computers into nets, which emerge as traces beneath my canvases. Physically integrating my grandfather's technology, I ask viewers to consider how the physicality of technology reflects its capabilities as information transmitters across time and space. In all cases, "synthetic material" (plastic, technology) tangles with "natural material" (watery organisms, my grandfather and myself). Troubling divisions of plastic and non-plastic, the ghost net prods ontological questions of where the body begins and synthetic material ends. In the proposition that my grandfather's "ghost" survives through his technology, I evoke parallel ontological questions of the soul in relationship to the physical human body. The ghost net transgresses boundaries between life and death, body and non-body, entangling both my grandfather and myself.

“'One of the most difficult aspects of our existence is to make sense of it. Some of us do not have to make sense of our existence, but for a few, it does matter to probe what is it all about. In fact, it can become an obsession, and as such, it may be very dangerous. Our own sanity may depend on how well we face this tremendous challenge of making sense of our universe, the inner universe of our thoughts, emotions, passions, the outer universe of our physical environment,'('It is very difficult to make sense of our lives' Luís Aguiar May 18, 1994).”