mechanizations of flow (2023)

[iphone samples of large idling truck, jackhammer, blowing wind, spinning key display, circular saw, drilling rig, plastic straw wrapper, electric razor, glass vases, propane tanks, microwave oven beeps, and distant machine beeping arranged in digital audio workstation]

as modes of extraction (of resources, of knowledge, of bodily capacity, of vulnerability and creativity) continue to literally fuel racial capitalism, machines continue to become a part of our ways of interacting with the earth, and with others. along with this increased presence of machines, or as machines, i’m thinking about the ways that certain kinds of being and thinking—especially extractivist and consumerist methods—are normalized, becoming a part of cultural codes, becoming mechanic. largely gathered as a practice of acknowledging violence and creating generative gestures, “mechanizations of flow” works to map the mechanics of cultural dominance and industrial presence in the everyday on top of and as a kind of surge, where increased temperatures (and compounding acidification) are causing salty ocean waters to rise, to submerge.