Goldberg borrows the concept of intra- action from feminist posthumanist philosopher Karen Barad, who argues that humans and nonhumans not only interact with one another but actually mutually produce each other\u2019s material-discursive constituency. She is interested in the transitional aspect of matter. From ranch fencing and bronze to celeriac and ginger, Goldberg\u2019s artworks present themselves as unexpected amalgams of materials that signal a peculiar poesy. A fragile \u2014 but carefully curated \u2014 equilibrium is reached in her installations and sculptures in which density meets elegant lines, luring the viewers in closer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cannibal Actif<\/em>is an exploration of the artist book as a threshold, presenting a tightly knit set of relationships among images, colours, textures, and texts. The book is divided into two sections: \u201cCannibal Actif: A Gutter Emerges\u201d and \u201cCannibal Actif Continues: La M\u00e9duse.\u201d The first section presents us with the bathers in Baku. Here, a gutter acts as the place of encounter between body and oil, not only visually but also as the gutter<\/em> of the book itself opens. As we move forward, Goldberg introduces what she refers to as \u201cconsuming agents\u201d through superimposed images of oily bodies and chia seeds growing. The digitally manipulated images merge into one another. Further along is the first essay in the book, Goldberg\u2019s \u201cHello Said Mirror.\u201d Mirrors, death, medusa, and oil: she lyrically unpacks her understanding of intra-action as encompassing all of those consuming agents. As she expands on this notion and applies it to the work in sculptural terms, intra-action becomes a tool and an in-between space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second half of the book dedicated to Medusa \u2014 both the mythical Greek figure and the invertebrate animal \u2014 works as a different space in the artist book. It is printed entirely in a monochrome sepia, in contrast with the rich and metallic inks of the first half. Here we encounter \u201cThe Space Between Two Mirrors,\u201d an essay by art historian Leah Pires, and a brief epilogue by Perkins. Pires explores the space of the mirror as a scene of conquest, but also as a witness to decomposition. In her view, Goldberg\u2019s artworks might very well occupy such space, the gap that forms between acts, where the mirror touches back, provoking an\u201cunruly set of relations1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - Leah Pires, “The Space Between Two Mirrors”, in Rochelle Goldberg, Cannibal Actif<\/em>, New York, Sequence Press and Totem Press, 2017, p. 155.<\/span> ” between bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cannibal Actif<\/em> dwells in such intra-action: the line between consuming and being consumed, transforming and being transformed, preying on and being preyed upon, is irrevocably blurred and becomes fully permeable. For Goldberg and Pires, permeability is \u201cthe loss of a stable distinction between self and other2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, 2 <\/a> - Ibid., p. 158.<\/span> ” and characterizes digestive networks, where the predator integrates the prey as part of itself, obscuring any clearly defined boundaries. Maybe the same permeability can allow us to understand the intra-action between the artwork and its public. How is this intra-action transformed when an artwork such as Cannibal Actif<\/em> permeates the controlled realm of a given artistic institution to infiltrate the intimacy of its public? Are we, the public, consuming (intra- acting with) the artwork, ingesting the artwork as self? Are we, the public, consuming (intra- acting with) the artwork, ingesting the artwork as self? Do we unknowingly take part in this cannibalistic activity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout her work, Goldberg challenges ideas about the fixity of artworks. An artist book would seem the perfect medium to do so, as the artwork itself is not bound to an exhibition space but is actually an object that travels, circulates, and is a device of reproduction, one that is multiple by nature. The artist book, as a physical and conceptual site, opens new possibilities for thinking about ideas from new materialism, particularly performativity and distributed agency. Barad defines performativity as the production of bodies through the enactment of practices, meaning that \u201cthe represented and the representation3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning<\/em>, Durham, Duke University Press, 2007, p. 49.<\/span> \u201d are not separate ontological entities but constitute one another through intra-actions. Cannibal Actif<\/em> draws our attention to the physical enactment of reading, as glossy white words over the white paper spread, forcing the reader to physically move the book, play with the light, until the text becomes visible with raking light. \u201cHard-edged contact signals a lie. The hand moves much further. A manipulator moving4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. 4 <\/a> - Goldberg, Cannibal Actif, 42<\/span>. \u201d The book makes us doubt our own touch, rendering evident the enactment of reading as we handle it. Moreover, we are not only reading the book, we are producing the book through our own doings. The artist book as performance echoes Yoko Ono\u2019s Grapefruit<\/em>(1964), a series of instructions that invited the audience to become part of the book itself by performing the commands. In a similar fashion, Fluxus 1<\/em>(1964) by George Maciunas, a book composed of envelopes with objects and prints by different artists belonging to the Fluxus movement, allows the audience to produce the work by physically assembling it. Both Grapefruit<\/em> and Fluxus 1<\/em> were not meant to be read but enacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Cannibal Actif <\/em>brings forward the question of performativity, it also makes us ask who the agents are that constitute and consume the book. As the credits in the book illustrate, the list of co-producers is quite extensive, from the photographer to the designer and printer. For Goldberg, the book-making process is, in and of itself, a collective effort. Still, this effort is not limited to human agents; the work presents a series of intra-actions between human and nonhuman agents that constitute an entanglement of material and discursive forces. Artist and art theorist Barbara Bolt argues that \u201cart is a material practice and that the materiality of matter lies at the core of creative5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> practice 5 <\/a> - Barbara Bolt, \u201cIntroduction: Toward a \u2018New Materialism\u2019 through the Arts<\/em>,\u201d in Carnal Knowledge: Toward a \u2018New Materialism\u2019 through the Arts<\/em>, eds. Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013), 5.<\/span> .\u201d Artists and their art are constantly relating to matter, and Cannibal Actif<\/em> is no different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book amalgamates rich photographic imagery with metallic textures and positions them in relation to the blank spaces on the page, composing a narrative that is interrupted with texts, and sometimes short sentences. Similar to an art exhibition, the elements that compose the book acquire meaning in relation to each other. Only in that intra-action is the universe of the book constituted. But form cannot be separated from the material, and the book as an object is a contained network of material intra-actions. Materially speaking, the 188-page book is printed with offset lithography and oil-based inks. The oil in this case is both the theme represented and the material that configures the image. The coating of the OJI matte paper prevents the ink from being absorbed by the paper support and gives a glossy, smooth finish. The purpose of the coating is to hold the ink in place, but it is a porous and permeable layer. Beyond its technical purposes, the very permeability that defines the materiality of the book is echoed in the subjects explored by Goldberg and Pires. What happens when oil and permeability coalesce through the act of cannibalism?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Goldberg writes, \u201cConsider cannibals not as structuring a devouring field framed by domination but rather as creating a space of devour framed as life extension. They ate me so I could continue to live<\/em>. A cannibal model means that our organism makes life available for other organisms6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. 6 <\/a> - Goldberg, Cannibal Actif, 103.<\/span>. As re-mattering of matter, cannibalism as an extension of life creates new and unanticipated material configurations \u2014 the preyed upon infiltrates the predator from the inside, permeates its entrails, evolves unexpectedly. When oil is added to the mix, the blurring of clear delimitations is complete. Oil is \u201con the move and roaming,7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u201d 7 <\/a> - Ibid., 97.<\/span> to use Goldberg\u2019s terms. It travels and surprises, impossible to pin down. It mirrors sameness and otherness all at once. Oil is a consuming agent that leaks into, permeates, eats, and stains what it encounters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The oily and shiny skin of the bathers, repeated throughout Cannibal Actif<\/em>, echoes the gloss of the paper itself, whose high-pigmented brown ink shimmers. In these images, the boundaries between human and oil are diffuse. As we get closer to the page with our fingers, the limits between the book and our body become evident; we become aware of our own skin only when we encounter the bodily presence of the book itself \u2014 and then a stain of oil appears on the dark areas of the print. The permeable substrate of the coated paper absorbs the oils of our skin, leaving a trace more obvious when we hold the book in raking light and the fingerprints appear. Books are objects that are persistently material. The wear of a book can tell us how it was used but also the affective relationship that users have entertained with it. Kathryn M. Rudy studied medieval manuscripts, mostly prayer books, with a densitometer to analyze the darker areas of vellum or paper produced by oily fingerprints, revealing which pages were the most read \u2014 and which ones ignored \u2014 as well as whether they were kissed or rubbed.8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - Kathryn M. Rudy, \u201cDirty Books: Quantifying Patterns of Use in Medieval Manuscripts,\u201d Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art<\/em> (Summer 2010), accessible online.<\/span>. In a way, books are not only to be read but to be physically consumed as objects of our affections. The porous properties of the book\u2019s materials and the qualities of grime are what allow these traces to be made through human interaction. Cannibal Actif<\/em> is a receptacle for these material encounters, in which \u201cempty\u201d space becomes a substrate and oil can freely leak, permeate materiality, consume, and be consumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldberg invites us to reflect on our own material constitution as active matter that constitutes, and is simultaneously being constituted by, the world around us. Cannibal Actif<\/em> puts forth this understanding of matter and ultimately questions the limitations of the artwork\u2019s ontology, as well as the material constituents of such limitations. On the permeability of boundaries, Donna Haraway argues that \u201c\u2018objects\u2019 do not pre-exist as such9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 9 <\/a> - Donna Haraway, \u201cSituated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,\u201d Feminist Studies<\/em>14, no. 3 (Autumn 1988): 595.<\/span>\u201d but that their boundaries are materialized through social interactions. In her view, objects actively produce knowledge, as they are \u201cmaterial-semiotic generative nodes.\u201d10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 10 <\/a> - Ibid.<\/span>. Cannibal Actif<\/em> plays on this symbiotic relationship between the material and the semiotic by foregrounding the manipulation of the book itself and positing the reader simultaneously as the consumed and consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cannibal Actif<\/em> is a threshold for material intra-actions, an invitation to become aware of our own material agency. Oil\u2019s leaking property, permeability, and the re-mattering act of cannibalism all converge in this artist book and repurpose the terms of consumption and cannibalism. Cannibalism is not restricted to its grim commonly shared definition; rather, it is seen as an active transformation of matter that can characterize the intra-action between the reader and the artwork, especially in the case of an artist book that permeates the material intimacy of its public. If we, the public, understand ourselves as active producers and consumers of artworks, and therefore of the world around us, a more precise comprehension of the responsibility that this position carries can emerge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/101-DO4-IMG3-IM_Dube-Castaneda_Goldberg_CannibalActif_pages-int_13C_CMYK-C2.jpg\")
Cannibal Actif<\/em>, interior pages, Sequence Press\/Totem, New York, 2017.
Photo : Stephen Faught, courtesy of the artist & Sequence Press, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Artist book<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/101-DO4-IMG2-IM_Dube-Castaneda_Goldberg_CannibalActif_pages-int_05C-C.jpg\")
Cannibal Actif<\/em>, interior pages, Sequence Press\/Totem, New York, 2017.
Photo : Stephen Faught, courtesy of the artist & Sequence Press, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nOil, Permeability,<\/strong> and Cannibalism<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/101-DO4-IMG4-IM_Dube-Castaneda_Goldberg_CannibalActif_pages-int_05C_CMYK-PETIT-C.jpg\")
Cannibal Actif<\/em>, interior pages, Sequence Press\/Totem, New York, 2017.
Photo : Stephen Faught, courtesy of the artist & Sequence Press, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n