STEPHANIE ELDEN

I’m not political. That’s not me.

I don’t speak until I have something to say.

I’m not ready to speak but right now I have to.

If I had to categorize myself I would say that I’m an observer. I’d like to think

myself a scientist. I admire their methodical way of classifying and explaining what they

see. I wish I could present my observations as clinically and without interrogation.

However, it has said that my creations are more in line with those of a mad scientist. I’m

not sure how I feel about that.

The following is an attempt to understand my work and the reasons why I feel

compelled to make works. It’s a collection of theories and jumbled notes on the side

effects of what I believe to be a much larger problem within our culture.

I seek to understand why humans are so troubled by the inevitable processes of

life and decay that we feel a need to create an artificial distance between ourselves and

the aspects of the human experience that make us uncomfortable.

I am speaking to the distancing from our food sources, from our bodies, from our

instincts, from the environment and from death. We’ve developed machines and

unnatural procedures in hopes of bypassing the difficult or distressing conditions of life.

We try to perpetuate the good: keep our food fresh, preserve our bodies, and fight

sickness & corrosion. As in the story of Siddhartha’s enlightenment, we are being

blinded from the negative sights and ultimately prevented from seeing life for what it

really is: as a process of constant change.

“Looking mortality straight in the eye is no easy feat. To avoid the exercise, we

choose to stay blindfolded, in the dark as to the realities of death and dying. But

ignorance is not bliss, only a deeper kind of terror.” 2

As a consequence to our attempts to solve the problem of change, we’ve created

incomprehensible side effects that continue to multiply and set off problematic reactions.

I work with materials and processes that act as evidence of change and therefore speak

to the impermanence of our vulnerable systems.

Ferrum corrumpitur, spoiled iron, iron oxide, or as it’s more commonly known,

rust, has been said to reveal the potency of our foresight, the weakness of our hubris,

and our failure to understand the role we fill in the world.1 I used rust to represent the

threat of bodily decay in my invention of a fictitious disease called Spontaneous

Hemoferric Oxidation. Wherein the iron that is naturally present within the body

spontaneously begins to convert to rust until the patient's affected organs and bones

became corroded beyond repair and the brain ultimately died from the loss of the ability

to transport oxygen to the cells via the infected hemoglobin. Maybe this is where I

acquired the label of mad scientist.

My work with casting and duplicating forms, for example my plaster vegetables

that have then been fertilized with MiracleGro, mirrors the way in which the systems of

our world, both natural and man-made, reproduce themselves. Plaster brings with it

associations of anthropological preservation, as well as its’ being a porous and fragile

material that will disintegrate over time. I believe we have this expectation that

homeostasis should be maintained, at least in the case of all that is “good”, but this is

neither possible nor beneficial. The abnormality leads to evolution of the species and

development of innovation.

Accordingly, when the system has all the necessities for growth but the result is

unexpectedly different it offers an opportunity for investigation and has the potential to

either incite further fear of the unknown or to inspire an epistemic curiosity 3 that leads to

new discovery.

“Curiosity is at its highest when the violation of an expectation is more than tiny

and less than enormous. When violations are minor, we can easily ignore them.

When they’re massive, we often refuse to acknowledge them because we’re

scared of what they imply.” 3

With my work I am tracing the symptoms of the epidemic that I observe to be

stemming from mankind’s disengagement with their natural processes, and through the

creation of investigative artworks that focus on the abnormalities arising out of repetitive

manipulation, I offer up my notes to the world in the hopes that someone more political

than I will be curious enough to respond with a solution.

Sources:

1 Waldman, Jonathan. Rust: The Longest War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015. 10, 34. Print.

2 Doughty, Caitlin. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory. New York: W.W.Norton &, 2014. IX. Print.

3 Leslie, Ian. Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It. New York: Basic, 2014. XX. Print.