Fluid Boundaries

Body, item, organ, object, shape, form, corpse, piece, skeleton, entity. How to define it depends on where you are looking from and what you are looking for. When speaking about the body of water or a mammal corpse, the interest lies in being assertive enough to differentiate them but not order them in a system. We won't organize these entities; they will command themselves. We will ignore the controlling practice; we will collaborate.

We differentiate and specifically inquire on not to accept dichotomies. We want to emphasize the connections, the conversations, the in-betweens. It will live, even when it's not a compound of organic matter. 

The surfaces are the body itself, and other items might be inside. When we see the connections, we know the system. We know what it's to be communicated, and we are part of these conversations without mouths.

We want to emphasize the connections, the conversations, the in-betweens. We move from the signifier to the signified and back again, in loops. We ask what a body means and what the letters B-O-D-Y can describe. We go to the edges between inside and outside, body or surface, membranes or tissues, fabrics. These edges are anew transforming, mutating, and reconstructing. These limits are fluid.

Where is the edge, the border, or the limit?

The fluid limits are among bodies, but also between concepts that we humanly divorce from each other.

In this instance, seeing an animated entity as a living one is an example of a non-permanent categorisation of others. We non-permanent categorize when we understand that "living creatures, according to this stance, are in no way 'better' than rocks.

Indeed, in a nonlinear world in which the same basic processes of self-organization take place in mineral, organic and cultural spheres, perhaps rocks hold some of the keys to understand sedimentary humanity, igneous humanity and all their mixtures." (DeLanda, 1996). In the non-permanent categorization practice, there is the possibility of shifting where something ends. It is a collaborative practice of creating a body, empty inside and with the guts on the outside—as well as another corpse of inorganic matter which can move.  Fluid limits can compare to our atmosphere; they have no specific shape and flow along with external powers.

What is a body, an object, an entity?

How do we define things, objects, bodies? What is a body? What does a body do?  What does a body contain? Is a body defined by the living? Are there living objects? Is being alive defined by movement/ dialog/ thinking/ function? What is the role of material? Do things, objects, bodies have to be categorised differently? Are things /objects /bodies systems inside systems?

How do we connect, communicate and relate?

The questions that then emerge are: how do we connect? How can two bodies, two organs, two membranes connect with each other? Through which elements or surfaces does a dialogue, an exchange take place? How can the objects / bodies / organs / membranes that surround us provoke memories and sensations?

What is immediately clear is that it is a matter of touch, of contact. In order for an exchange to take place, the porous surfaces must come close to each other and form a close relationship. And what roles can two touching surfaces play? How can they influence each other?