An investigation into what happens in creative practice when the materials of art and research behave and perform in ways beyond the creators'intentions.In Alien Agency, Chris Salter tells three stories of art in the making. Salter examines three works in which the materials of art—the “stuff of the world”—behave and perform in ways beyond the creator's intent, becoming unknown, surprising, alien. Studying these works—all three deeply embroiled in and enabled by science and technology—allows him to focus on practice through the experiential and affective elements of creation. Drawing on extensive ethnographic observation and on his own experience as an artist, Salter investigates how researcher-creators organize the conditions for these experimental, performative assemblages—assemblages that sidestep dichotomies between subjects and objects, human and nonhuman, mind and body, knowing and experiencing.Salter reports on the sound artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A) and their efforts to capture and then project unnoticed urban sounds; tracks the multi-year project TEMA (Tissue Engineered Muscle Actuators) at the art research lab SymbioticA and its construction of a hybrid “semi-living” machine from specially grown mouse muscle cells; and describes a research-creation project (which he himself initiated) that uses light, vibration, sound, smell, and other sensory stimuli to enable audiences to experience other cultures'“ways of sensing.” Combining theory, diary, history, and ethnography, Salter also explores a broader question: How do new things emerge into the world and what do they do?

motw/Alien Agency_ Experimental Enco - Chris Salter.pdf

Alien agency : experimental enclunters with art in the making

Alien Agency: Research-Creation with the Nonhuman

Salter, Chris; Pickering, Andrew;

AAAI Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England, 2015

United States, United States of America

2015-02-06

producers:
Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5 (Windows)

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Contents 8
Acknowledgments 10
Preface 12
Introduction 16
I Resonances 34
1 Hearing Perspectives 36
2 From Agency to Practice 55
3 Green Belts in Goethe's City 56
4 Stories Told of Sonic Reals 65
5 Four Ears, or Listening as Making 68
6 Can Architecture Hear? 77
7 Hearing View 80
8 Affects and Atmospheres 95
9 Tuning 98
II Cellular Vitality 100
1 A Living Machine? 103
2 Suspicions of a Wet Kind 107
3 Experiments in a Lab at the End of the World 109
4 The Tissue Culture Point of View — Part I 122
5 Techniques for Immortality 128
6 The Tissue Culture Point of View — Part II 131
7 Surface Tensions 134
8 The Tissue Culture Point of View — Part III 136
9 A Tutorial on Muscle-Cell Energetics 139
10 Where the Art Is . . . 141
11 The Tacit Knowing of Tissue 142
12 A Revealing School Seminar 151
13 Goals and Purposes 153
14 Tissue Culture Hands On 156
15 Life's Triumph in the Dish 165
16 Eight Failed Experiments in Substrate Sketching 167
17 Reflections on Bare Life at the Bench 170
18 Collagen Trials While the Clock Ticks 172
19 Suspension 177
20 Is Life in Bodies? 178
III Sensorium 182
1 Limens 184
2 Mediations of Sensation 185
3 Three Tensions 191
4 Four Seminars in Sensory Experience 193
5 Translation and Enactment 203
6 Atmospheres Unveiled 205
7 Technologies of the Senses 208
8 Seeding Alter 210
9 How to Invoke the Cosmos 216
10 Experience Near-Far 225
11 The Missing Sense 226
12 The Conditions of Sensory Assemblage 229
13 Displace 240
14 “Death, Limbo, and then Heaven down the Hall” 243
15 Is Sense in Culture? 250
Conclusion: Is the World a Laboratory? 254
Afterword 258
Notes 262
References 288
Index 312

An investigation into what happens in creative practice when the materials of art and research behave and perform in ways beyond the creators' intentions. In Alien Agency , Chris Salter tells three stories of art in the making . Salter examines three works in which the materials of artthe stuff of the worldbehave and perform in ways beyond the creator's intent, becoming unknown, surprising, alien. Studying these worksall three deeply embroiled in and enabled by science and technologyallows him to focus on practice through the experiential and affective elements of creation. Drawing on extensive ethnographic observation and on his own experience as an artist, Salter investigates how researcher-creators organize the conditions for these experimental, performative assemblagesassemblages that sidestep dichotomies between subjects and objects, human and nonhuman, mind and body, knowing and experiencing. Salter reports on the sound artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A) and their efforts to capture and then project unnoticed urban sounds; tracks the multi-year project TEMA (Tissue Engineered Muscle Actuators) at the art research lab SymbioticA and its construction of a hybrid semi-living machine from specially grown mouse muscle cells; and describes a research-creation project (which he himself initiated) that uses light, vibration, sound, smell, and other sensory stimuli to enable audiences to experience other cultures' ways of sensing. Combining theory, diary, history, and ethnography, Salter also explores a broader How do new things emerge into the world and what do they do?

"In Alien Agency, Chris Salter tells three stories of art in the making. Salter examines three works in which the materials of art--the "stuff of the world"--Behave and perform in ways beyond the creator's intent, becoming unknown, surprising, alien. Studying these works--all three deeply embroiled in and enabled by science and technology--allows him to focus on practice through the experiential and affective elements of creation. Drawing on extensive ethnographic observation and on his own experience as an artist, Salter investigates how researcher-creators organize the conditions for these experimental, performative assemblages--assemblages that sidestep dichotomies between subjects and objects, human and nonhuman, mind and body, knowing and experiencing. Salter reports on the sound artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A) and their efforts to capture and then project unnoticed urban sounds; tracks the multi-year project TEMA (Tissue Engineered Muscle Actuators) at the art research lab SymbioticA and its construction of a hybrid "semi-living" machine from specially grown mouse muscle cells; and describes a research-creation project (which he himself initiated) that uses light, vibration, sound, smell, and other sensory stimuli to enable audiences to experience other cultures' "ways of sensing." Combining theory, diary, history, and ethnography, Salter also explores a broader question: How do new things emerge into the world and what do they do?"--Publisher's description

In Alien Agency , Chris Salter tells three stories of art in the making . Salter examines three works in which the materials of art -- the "stuff of the world" -- behave and perform in ways beyond the creator's intent, becoming unknown, surprising, alien. Studying these works -- all three deeply embroiled in and enabled by science and technology -- allows him to focus on practice through the experiential and affective elements of creation. Drawing on extensive ethnographic observation and on his own experience as an artist, Salter investigates how researcher-creators organize the conditions for these experimental, performative assemblages -- assemblages that sidestep dichotomies between subjects and objects, human and nonhuman, mind and body, knowing and experiencing.
Salter reports on the sound artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O+A) and their efforts to capture and then project unnoticed urban sounds; tracks the multi-year project TEMA (Tissue Engineered Muscle Actuators) at the art research lab SymbioticA and its construction of a hybrid "semi-living" machine from specially grown mouse muscle cells; and describes a research-creation project (which he himself initiated) that uses light, vibration, sound, smell, and other sensory stimuli to enable audiences to experience other cultures' "ways of sensing." Combining theory, diary, history, and ethnography, Salter also explores a broader question: How do new things emerge into the world and what do they do?
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2025-10-27