Throughout these last few decades, phenomenology and modern physics have slowly started to approach each other in order to bridge the gap between the subjective and objective. In this thesis I aim to show an approach done with the help of Karen Barad's agential realism; a quantum interpretation enabling us to better understand and analyse our complex world, as well as our perception of it.Taking inspiration from new materialism, phenomenology and physics, I see a need to properly leave discrete dualism behind, in order to be able to describe cultural and material structures as continuous manifolds. Instead of endlessly searching for their binary and changeless parts. / Under de senaste decennierna har fenomenologin och den moderna fysiken sakta men säkert börjat närma sig varandra, för att försöka fylla gapet mellan det subjektiva och det objektiva. I den här uppsatsen vill jag visa på ett av dessa tillvägagångssätt genom att använda mig av Karen Barads agentisk realism; en kvantfysisk tolkning som underlättar vår förståelse och förmåga att analysera en komplex värld, samt vår perception av den.Med inspiration från nymaterialism, fenomenologi och fysik, så ser jag ett behov att lämna en diskret dualism bakom oss, för att istället beskriva kulturella och materialistiska strukturer som en kontinuerlig mångfald. Till skillnad från det ändlösa sökandet efter deras binära och oföränderliga delar.

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In this essay I examine scenography as a verb, to scenograph, and what it means to consider scenography as a process of development rather than an artifact placed on stage. Based on Deleuze and Guattari's ideas about rhizomatic structures and becomings, carnal aesthetics and phenomenology, I weave together tactile knowledge, the agency of the materials themselves and collective processes in a text about finding the inherent is of a scenography. / I den här essän undersöker jag scenografi som ett verb, att scenografa, och vad det innebär att betrakta scenografi som en process istället för en artefakt placerad på scen. Utifrån Deleuze och Guattaris idéer om rhizomatiska strukturer och blivande, carnal aesthetics och fenomenologi väver jag samman taktil kunskap, materials egen agens och kollektiva processer i en text om att hitta scenografins inneboende själv.

Abstract Sustainability is a catchword for contemporary concerns of environmental and societal vulnerability. Scholars, policymakers, designers, and educators alike find themselves knotted increasingly within fabrics of sustainability, approached as an object of concern in education and technoscientific projects. In relation, scholars drawing from posthuman and new materialist thinking have begun to re-imagine sustainability. Considering human subjectivity as part of the world in its ongoing, reiterative becoming has introduced new possibilities to rethink responsibility in and for sustainable change. This research is rooted in my engaged practices of participatory design and education on violence, violence prevention, and non-violence, which form the empirical research terrain of this study. This dissertation includes four articles that inquire into the practices in question by exploring possibilities for nurturing non-violence—and by scrutinising responsible participatory practices in design. This synopsis re-engages with the results presented in the articles mentioned and participates in calls to rethink sustainability. In order to reconsider sustainability in and for practices of sustainable change, I develop theoretical thinking based on response-ability and touch, as discussed by Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. Through a diffractive, affirmative engagement with sustainability in the engaged practices of change-making, I aim to unfold the affordances of feminist (new) materialist renegotiations of ethics and responsibility, in order to inform responsible participatory practices of change-making and, in particular, change towards non-violence. This research offers insight into the intricate ways sustainability reconfigures in and through practices of change-making in participatory design, education, and everyday engagements for non-violence. I begin by proposing a thinking and practice of response-able engagement. Then, through the idea of touchable matters, I foreground how the co-constituted conditions of ethically sustainable response become reconfigured in the designerly, the researcherly, the pedagogical, and other everyday practices, challenging for a shift to a new mode of entangled response-ability for sustainable change and towards non-violence. / Tiivistelmä Kestävyys on aikaamme läpileikkaava, sosiaalisiin ja ekologisiin epäkohtiin tarttuva haaste, joka yhdistää tutkijoita ja muita toimijoita moninaisina jaetun huolen ja interventioiden kohteina myös koulutuksellisissa ja teknotieteellisissä projekteissa. Posthumanistinen ja uusmaterialistinen ajattelu on haastanut ymmärryksiä kestävyydestä asettamalla inhimillisen toimijuuden erottamattomaksi osaksi maailman jatkuvia tulemisen ja tuottumisen prosesseja. Painopiste kestävyyden, muutoksen ja niihin liittyvien vastuullisuuksien tarkastelussa on siirtynyt arkisten käytänteiden moniulotteisiin kietoutuneisuuksiin. Väitöstutkimukseni sisältää neljä artikkelia, jotka perustuvat kahteen empiiriseen kokonaisuuteen. Työni aineisto on tuotettu tutkimalla työpaikkakiusaamiseen liittyvän osallistuvan suunnittelun vastuullisia käytänteitä sekä väkivaltaa, väkivallan ehkäisemistä ja väkivallattomuutta käsittelevää akateemista koulutusta. Väitöskirjaan sisältyvissä artikkeleissa olen tarkastellut pyrkimyksiä kohti väkivallattomuutta sekä muutokseen sitoutuneita ja siihen moninaisesti kietoutuvia käytänteitä. Työni yhteenveto-osassa työstän artikkeleissa esitettyjä osallistumista, refleksiivisyyttä, välittämistä ja väkivallattomuutta käsitteleviä tuloksia diffraktiivisesti. Työstämisen teoreettis-käsitteellisenä kumppanina toimivat Karen Baradin ja Donna Harawayn kosketusta ja vastuullisuutta käsittelevät keskustelut. Yhteenvedon tavoitteena on tarkastella feministisen (uus)materialistisen ajattelun mahdollisuuksia tuottaa uutta ymmärrystä kestävyydestä osana vastuullisia osallistuvia toimintatapoja muutoksen – ja erityisesti väkivallattomuuteen pyrkivän muutoksen – jokapäiväisissä käytänteissä. Kestävän muutoksen ja väkivallattomuuden mahdollisuudet tuottuvat osallistuvan suunnittelun, koulutuksen ja arjen käytänteissä moninaisin tavoin. Vastuullisuutta tarkastellessani esitän ajatuksen ”koskettavista kudelmista”, mikä kutsuu tunnistamaan, kuinka eettisen kestävyyden ja suhteisuuden mahdollisuudet ”kanssatuottuvat” arkisissa kohtaamisissa. Samalla se haastaa rakentamaan uudenlaista, tähän eettis-ontologiseen kietoutuneisuuteen sitoutunutta vastuullisuutta jokapäiväisissä suunnittelun, tutkimuksen, koulutuksen ja arjen pyrkimyksissä kohti kestävää muutosta ja väkivallattomuutta.

Our western society and lifestyle is to a considerable extent depended on the way we perceive and treat our co-existing non-human species. Industrial farming, vivisection, sports, circuses etcetera are just a few examples of how human use and exploit animal bodies for own gain. A phenomenon that in many ways, is perceived, as natural and normal, and therefore seldom discussed. The thesis purpose is to problematize this phenomenon by examine, what I call “The Speciesism Gaze”, through analysis of posters that promote animal rights, selected online, through the search domain Google. The theoretical framework used, are theories focusing on intersectionality, derived within postcolonial-, eco-critical and new materialist feminism. A brief introduction of animal right movements, its linking to feminism activism and theories derived within affect theory is presented as background for the analysis. As method, I use critical discourse analysis, focusing on intertextuality of the posters context. Asking what discourses emerge, challenging the anthropocentric and androcentric western dualistic hierarchy, whilst displaying mutually reinforced structures of sexism, racism and speciesism? I discuss the western historical and cultural human idea that the human species is separated from nature and animal, and where the “right” human subject standard is perceived as male, white, heterosexual and western in the Anthropocene age. I found that, this standard is displayed, played on, and questioned in the posters selected, in relation to animal materiality, grievability, killability, species necropolitics, sexism and racism. I discuss in my conclusion that oppression based on speciesism is not a power relation discussed in society today to the same extent as expressions of sexism and racism are. It is however an oppression that we all take part in every day and that affect all of us, despite species belonging. In that context, I hope the theorization and meaning of the speciesism gaze will have significance within the field of feminist theorizations and practices.

This thesis investigates three contemporary Canadian texts— Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, and Rita Wong’s forage—that treat information as an object that can be wasted and recuperated. Using information theory and a new sub-field of critical waste theory called “Discard Studies,” I explore how the authors studied in this thesis place these two lines of thought alongside one another to examine how the concept of recycling information challenges the material, cultural, and ideological structures that distance humans from their waste. Specifically, I read the event of recycling as an interruptive act that triggers a reassessment of the (im)material connections that tether humans to their waste, vast (inter)national networks of exchange, and environmental crises related to our garbage.

Using new materialist approaches to intersectional theories of gender/sex –particularly Karen Barad’s ethico-onto-epistemological framework, agential realism– this thesis examines how knowledge about class is produced, through feminist performance art practices. Through this lens I will examine how two pieces of performance art by U.K. based artists, Sophie Lisa Beresford and Catherine Hoffmann, can express novel ways in which class is not simply a system acting upon bodies, but inextricably entwined with, and produced through, bodily matter. Furthermore, this essay discusses the ways in which performance art is uniquely positioned to examine this intra-action between discourse and matter; providing a way to bridge the gaps in the current theoretical discourses and creative practices. Keywords: Feminist performance art, agential realism, intersectionality, class, new materialism, class-drag, performativity, class-passing, intra-activity.

A wall might appear as basic, a clean surface without an identity of its own, nothing but a clean slate upon which to leave any impression. Though the walls surrounding us are all but anonymous. They are built with a structure making them stand tall and strong. They are filled with insulation to keep us warm and sheltered. They are hard and they are soft. They can allow us to isolate ourselves from each other or they are fragile enough to let us know someone is on the other side. They cover the basic necessities of our houses, and we in return cover them to make our spaces less anonymous. There is softness hidden in your walls mainly aims to highlight the textile components of architecture which we usually never see. While we tend to view textiles mostly as decoration, they constantly perform in a lot of various ways all around us. In this project I have worked with prefabricated building materials that according to me have textile qualities, but they aren’t viewed as textile. Or I have tried to adapt textile techniques to non-textile materials to test them in new ways. The wall as the leading actor has first and foremost been used as a conversation partner for the material exploration and contextualization. The main material used is wool sheep insulation though many other materials have been put to the test throughout the process.

The dissertation Alternative Ontology, subtitled Topological Imagination and Topological Materialism, focuses on the analysis of spatial phenomena and space in the intentions of the mathematical discipline of topology, which is interested in spaces from the point of view of set theory. My goal is to present topology as a tool not only for contemporary philosophy, but also for artistic creation. For the purpose of the dissertation, I formulate two concepts: Topological imagination and Topological materialism. Topological imagination is a tool and method for creating and thinking with the consciousness of space as a dynamic structure, which is not bound only by fixed laws of geometry. This method originated as the name of my long-term artistic practice, which is largely based on the study of space, topology, knot theory and the search for ways of their application in artistic and theoretical work. I propose Topological materialism as a concept that combines the thinking of networks and multi-dimensional spaces with the philosophical currents of the materialist tradition, especially the New Materialism. My basic thesis is that these cannot be perceived separately. Materialism cannot be thought without its spatial dimension, and topology without anchoring in the material world becomes a mere abstraction. The second part of the dissertation is devoted to the analysis of specific spaces: the space we inhabit, which I call phenomenological, infrastructure, logistics space, information space and the space of capital. In addition to individual analyzes, I also focus on their intersections, connections and joint operation.

Thèse en recherche-création Cette version de la thèse a été tronquée des éléments de composition originale. Une version plus complète est disponible en ligne pour les membres de la communauté de l’Université de Montréal et peut aussi être consultée dans une des bibliothèques UdeM. / Cette recherche-création est issue de ce questionnement : qu’est-ce qui est en jeu dès lors qu’il s’agit d’intégrer et d’imbriquer l’improvisation (l’écoute active, corps agissant et réagissant au son en devenir) et la composition (écoute répétée, traitements fins, auscultation de la matière) dans une pratique électroacoustique ? Pour y répondre, j’ai développé un dispositif d’improvisation multipiste — intitulé le projet MissTake — axé sur des technologies hybrides (analogiques et numériques), l’instabilité et la non-linéarité dans une approche morphologique et ondulatoire des flux sonores. Trois compositions sont issues de ce questionnement. Mes pièces Volt_#1, Volt_#3 et Dancing on the Edge of Darkness, créées avec les matériaux sonores du dispositif, ont généré un processus de délestage dans les gestes compositionnels et les mouvements de spatialisation. L’analyse de ces œuvres utilise les concepts puisés dans le nouveau matérialisme et la philosophie de Deleuze et Guattari. Le projet MissTake, conçu autour d’un magnétophone à cassettes quatre pistes configurées en sans-entrée, est l’aboutissement de cette recherche-création. Le choix du multipiste, des sonorités bruiteuses et de l’improvisation libre a apporté un changement de visée fondamental dans ma pratique et donné lieu à un processus de décélération sur le plan temporel. En me concentrant sur le matériau sonore évacué du signifié, dans la perception et l’abstraction, j’ai pu développer une pensée de la musique comme ouverture sur l’indéfini, dans le sensible et l’inachèvement de la forme. / This research-creation begins with this questioning : what is at stake when it comes to integrating and coalescing improvisation (active listening, embodied gestures, acting and reacting to the sound in the making) and composition (repeated listening, refine and detailed treatments, auscultation of the material) to an electroacoustic practice? To answer this, I developed a multichannel improvisation device – called the MissTake project – focused on hybrid technologies (analogue and digital), instability and non-linearity in a morphological and undulatory approach to sound flows. Three compositions come from this questioning and device. My pieces Volt_#1, Volt_#3 and Dancing on the Edge of Darkness have generated a process of step-down compositional gestures and spatialization movements. The analysis of the works is based on concepts drawn from the new materialism and philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. The MissTake performance, designed around a four-track cassette recorder configured in no-input is the culmination of this research-creation. The choice of the multichannel, noise aesthetics and free improvisation brought a fundamental change of focus in my practice and gave rise to a deceleration process at the temporal level of sound. By focusing on the sound material evacuated from any meaning, in perception and abstraction, I was able to develop a thought of music as an opening on the indefinite, in the sensible and the incompleteness of the form.