Eija Loponen-Stephenson

Net Interface: a propositional model for forming body-structures (2019)

Materials: Forest-green privacy netting, button thread, brass grommets, wheat pasted images.

Net Interface is a proposition for a new body composed of both human and nonhuman components that might emerge from the rubble of a demolition site. A large sheet of heavy forest-green privacy netting (often used to obscure construction projects) is draped over the entire site and five human subjects. In an action similar to swallowing, the net combines the forms of the rubble and bodies beneath its surface. Eight long gloved sleeves extend from the surface of the sheet made of the same green netting to be worn by the human subjects. Attached by the gloves, the human subjects move beneath the netting through the rubble together. The net-skin inhibits the participant’s individual motion so that their movement must be in consideration of space and one another. What results is a writhing building-sized body-structure or compound actant with both architectural and human attributes.

This work calls into question both the participants' and the viewers' perceptions of wholeness and singularity. When activated in an architectural space this work teaches bodies to move with their environment as if it were an extension of themselves. The goal of this work is to dilute perceptions of self-hood to extend to one’s surroundings; perhaps an antidote to the perceived hardness of the object world which alienates us from the urbanscape.

When installed in a gallery space the net hangs from the ceiling like a heavy theater curtain. Viewers can walk behind the net where they are invited to activate the work by putting their arms inside the long gloves that are attached to the curtain at various heights. The result is an eerie hybrid of the participant's bodies and the space of the gallery. Image documentation of the demolition site activation are opportunistically wheat pasted to the gallery walls mimicking the posters and fliers that so often appear in peeling layers on the provisional plywood walls surrounding such places 

Movement Studies in Angular Space (2020) 

Materials: Found metal vent covers, printed images. 

Movement Studies in Angular Space (2020) are propositions of how body-structures might form unassisted by wearable mechanisms.Without a wearable to organize participants' actions, I turned to pedagogy as a tool to disseminate that which I have learned through my own attempts to reciprocally commune with my urban surroundings. The result is something resembling a slow parkour. 

I developed a three-part lesson plan which addresses how the body’s movement is influenced by the local architectural environment. The supplementary material accompanying this lesson comes in the form of a pocket-sized pamphlet which details three field exercises designed with the intention of having the students embody new modes of inhabiting space. 

In line with the tenants of parkour or free running, my hope was that my students interact with the physical constraints of their urban environment in a generative and playful way, detached from the normally accepted mores and rhythms of the city.

The images integrated within this work were captured by Wearable Art students who participated in the workshop/seminar I instructed on February 12th, 2020 at OCAD University with the generous support of Professor Sean Smith. During this workshop students were given one hour to document themselves in the urban environment performing gestures informed by the strategies laid out in the lesson. Mimicking the actions of the students’ bodies, the paper prints drape over the metal forms without fastening materials, their shapes informed by the structures beneath them.