Peripheral Alacrity - Animation as entry into non-human temporalities by Devon Pardue

A master's thesis culminating in a project called Peripheral Alacrity; an audiovisual animation installation utilizing animation at 60fps to investigate the temporal relationship between us and fast-moving organisms on the edges of our senses. My work is informed by a deeply rooted interest and curiosity in the biological sciences and uses ideas found therein to explore the complicated relationships between humans and the rest of the living world. I became particularly interested in the perception of time across species and the potential for animation to serve as an axis into nonhuman temporalities. How are our relationships with other organisms impacted by our bodies' unique temporality? Fast-living invertebrates like insects are of particular importance because their crucial role in a healthy ecosystem forces us to reconcile with our particular disdain for their speed and our desire for control over our surroundings. That desire to oversee and pin down a version of nature that is ideologically pure has roots in Europatriarchal power structures, so I sought to create a space to recontextualize these encounters as they naturally are in our day-to-day life. The work seeks to capture this particular interaction characterized by fleeting peripheral glimpses of fast-living organisms; from dragonflies to some we only see as a passing blur, and all the abstractions in between. You’re interrupted by a flash of motion and sound from the corner of your eye and by the time you crane your head to look, it is already gone. It is less about seeing, and more about our desire-to-see creating an asymmetrical dance between the viewer and the fleeting subject.

Every Corner is Alive asks questions of our shared environments in a moment of grief and uncertainty: How do we approach landscapes, or the idea of a so-called natural expanses of earth, sky, water, or air, when the world itself is burning? Can we consider what writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit described as the mysterious “conjunction between time, place, and celestial body” from corners of the sky to our discrete rooms? Or do our current “scapes” of all kinds threaten to overburden, overwhelm, and overtake us? Solnit’s turning towards associational relationships—word and image, sky and location—leads us to the stories that enliven our shared environment together.

In this series of exhibitions, realized as a the culmination of the Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) of Willamette University, works by Stashia Cabral, Élan Chardin, Laura Jean Foster, Amy Gibson, Ondrea Levey, Kelly Marshall, lynn ruth stephens, Devon Pardue, Jenny Wilde, and Ahuva S. Zaslavsky embody environments that query the limits and relationships of our shared space-times. Their installations, sculptures, paintings, textiles, videos, performances, ceramics, and photographs disclose disparate constellations of relationships, but articulate collective being.

Every Corner is Alive is presented by the PNCA’s Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies Low-Residency in Visual Studies MFA and is co-curated by artist and curator, Simone Fischer and art historian, writer, and Director of Curatorial Affairs at Artspace New Haven, Laurel V. McLaughlin.

Peripheral Alacrity is a 3-channel audiovisual projection installation utilizing animation at 60fps to investigate the temporal relationship between us and organisms on the edges of our senses. The work seeks to capture a particular interaction characterized by fleeting peripheral glimpses of fast-living organisms; from dragonflies to some we only see as a passing blur, and all the abstractions in between. You’re interrupted by a flash of motion and sound from the corner of your eye. By the time you crane your head to look, it is already gone. It is less about seeing, and more about our desire-to-see creating a dance between the viewer and the fleeting subject.

The installation was done as the culmination of my Low-Residency MFA Visual Studies program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. It served as the centrepiece of my thesis exhibition, titled The Brevity in Temporal Asymmetry, which was displayed at PNCA's main building Mediatheque from August 2nd-8th, 2022. It featured with others as part of our 2022 Thesis Exhibition series, Every Corner is Alive.

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