Stasis Suits

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2019This project is an exploration of fragility and safety, using artificial protective membranes as material and form. The work is concerned with situations of ‘stasis’ - defined as a time loop, a medical term for a blockage, and as described by Georgio Agamben via Hito Steyerl, as deliberately maintained instability. I examine the production of hazardous material and futile mitigation efforts as examples of this kind of stasis - problems caused and maintained by the same agents. This project focuses on empty gestures of protection; using hazmat or cleanroom suits as form and metaphor, I compare properties of living membranes and the simulation of those membranes by the makers of protective gear. The research concerns E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (now DOWDuPont) for its technological innovations in membrane manufacturing and its history of rampant pollution. This research and the accompanying artwork looks critically at a surface as a boundary, as a means of concealment, and as superficial protection

Neolithic culinary traditions revealed by cereal, milk and meat lipids in pottery from Scottish crannogs

Cereal cultivation in Britain dates back to ca. 4000 BCE, probably introduced by migrant farmers from continental Europe. Widespread evidence for livestock appears in the archaeozoological record, also reflected by ubiquitous dairy lipids in pottery organic residues. However, despite archaeobotanical evidence for domesticated plants (such as cereals), organic residue evidence has been near-absent. Our approach, targeting low-abundance cereal-specific markers, has now revealed evidence for cereals (indicating wheat) in Neolithic pottery from Scottish ‘crannogs’, dating to ca. 3600 – 3300 BCE. Their association with dairy products suggests cerealsmay have been regularly prepared together as amilk-based gruel.We also observed a strong association between the occurrence of dairy products and smaller-mouthed vessels. Here, we demonstrate that cereal-specific markers can survive in cooking pots for millennia, revealing the consumption of specific cereals (wheat) that are virtually absent from the archaeobotanical record for this region and illuminating culinary traditions among early farming communities