Author Archives: cat

REAGGREGATING A BODY

Reaggregating a Body, was commissioned by Cara-Ann Simpson for her exhibition catalogue ‘Furari Flores’ (Stealing Flowers), a multi-sensory arts experience exploring the wonder of plants, including essays by Dr Louise Martin-Chew, Dr Prudence Gibson, and A/Prof Kyle Jenkins. ‘Furari Flores’ exhibition took place at University Southern Queensland Gallery, January 2024.

Print catalogue available at caraannsimpson.com (ebook forthcoming).

Audio book available on Soundcloud

‘Furari Flores’ immerses me in a strange, sometimes surreal bushland. Glinting light and leaf and rock are expanded, compacted, and re-arranged into a dense series of beautiful aesthetic forms. This body of work by Cara-Ann Simpson goes beyond the exquisite rendering of contemporary landscape recognized by her 2022 Heysen Prize. It follows the remembrance of a deeply personal trajectory from illness to recovery, entwined with landscapes and the native, endemic, and invasive species that have surrounded her. With this in mind, ‘Furari Flores’ forms an alliance with Ross Gibson’s Memoryscopes, distilled in his description of remembrance as putting a ‘disaggregated’ body back together.

Cat Jones, Reaggregating a Body, ‘Furari Flores’ , Cara-Ann Simpson, 2024, ISBN 978-0-6459420-0-2

No, You’re Not Entitled To Your Opinion And 49 Other Essays

Included in the The Conversation’s ten year anniversary collection is the article I co-authored with neurophysiotherapist Jane Chalmers “Why the clitoris doesn’t get the attention it deserves and why that matters” (2016).

“No, You’re Not Entitled to Your Opinion and 49 Other Essays That Got the World Talking” is edited by Alexandra Hansen and published by Thames and Hudson in September 2021.

Available in paperback or e-book HERE and for 20% discount use coupon code CON20.

NEWS

UPDATES OCTOBER 2025

At SXSW I’m joining Tammy Burnstock and friends in her Play SmellScape- A tabletop game for your nose! session on Saturday 18th Oct at 11am as part of the Games Festival.

UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2025

Coming up on Friday 19th September I’m joining Kate Goodwin, Dr Jonathan Jones, Professor Liza Lim AM, and Anne Loxley on a panel with the provocation Reclaiming Tomorrow: Artists’ Visions for a Regenerative Future at Festival of Urbanism.

UPDATES MAY 2025

I’m thrilled to have been appointed to Create NSW’s Digital & Experimental, Immersive and Light Art, Artform Board alongside inspirational colleagues in order to support NSW artists. So great to be part of Create NSW’s support for these artforms with a discrete and dedicated Artform Board.

UPDATES APRIL 2025

ABC’s Compass Series 39 features Deborah Kelly’s CREATION project and choir performance at Art Gallery NSW. You can watch it on Easter Sunday at 6.30pm AEST free to air TV, on ABC Iview anytime or if you are located internationally it’s accessible on their Youtube channel. Catch the ABC News Story here.

And for the month of April you can listen on Soundcloud to one of the commissioned songs ‘Urgently and Gently‘ a sacrament of human-tree kinship; at once a binding spell, an invocation, a calling-into-being. The song is based on a prayer by Juundaal Strang Yettica and is composed by Lex Lindsay and sung by the Creation choir, myself included.

UPDATES MARCH 2025

Vote for us at SXSW! Tammy Burnstock is pitching her game Smellscape as a TableTop Game at this year’s SXSW and voting is now open.

UPDATES OCTOBER 2024

This year I joined the choir for Deborah Kelly’s Creation project, a queer insurrectionary, science-fiction, climate change religion. We’ve performed at the Sydney Opera House, Newcastle Town Hall, Sydney Biennale and this month at Art Gallery NSW for Art After Hours anniversary edition, including a series of public rehearsals. The choir is just one part of a much bigger and more expansive project involving many other extraordinary artists and spanning a commissioned liturgy, poetry, costumes, choreography, animation, video, workshops, a book, photographic portraits and much more. Listening to and singing Lex Lindsay’s libretto under the direction of choirmaster Kit Spencer, and wearing the collection of exquisite non-binary finery has been magical. The project is open for touring and I hope you get to see it somewhere, sometime.

UPDATES AUGUST 2024

A little taste of Medicament for Your Predicament is coming to Adhocracy 2024 as part of Vitalstatistix 40th Anniversary celebrations. Joining me as Guest Artist for OPEN PHARMACY! is Ruby Donohoe!

Very happy to be contributing to The Bearded Tit’s inaugural Art Auction with a limited edition print for In Memory of Now ™ The Tit’s 10th birthday anniversary. The Art Auction is LIVE! and closes on 7th September 8.30pm AEST.

UPDATES JULY 2024

Thanks ANAT for the opportunity to reflect on some of the trajectories emerging from my Synapse residency 10 years on in the July Q&A. It’s lead to unexpected places and is such a wonderful cohort of alumni to be part of.

I’ve had the pleasure of delving into the work of performance artist, Kerith Manderson-Galvin, writing text to accompany their exhibition Perpetual Horror, at IN | ari, Maroochydore.

UPDATES JUNE 2024

Looking forward to the overstimulation of ISEA Everywhen, Meanjin and catching up with the art/science crew after such a very long time apart.

I’m settling in to a month’s residency at 2nd Space, Nambour, Kabi Kabi Country, Sunshine Coast, to dabble with Spell Kit for Navigating Uncertainty in conversation with Amie Moffat as part of Project 24 supported by Sunshine Coast Council. Such a lovely bunch of other artists-in-residence, curators and producers around.

UPDATES APRIL 2024

The past few months I’ve been rehearsing with the choir for Deborah Kelly’s Creation. We are performing at Sydney Biennale on 13th and 14th April as part of EDGE Town Hall Takeover, Petersham Town Hall. Come!

Cara-Ann Simpson’s ‘Furari Flores‘ exhibition catalogue has been made into an audio book including my essay ‘Reaggregating A Body’, available on Soundcloud. E-book coming soon…

UPDATES FEBRUARY 2024

Happy Mardi Gras! This month I’m part of the exhibition Future Dreaming, curated by Emmaly Langridge, at Randwick Town Hall. Showing alongside artists Dennis Golding, Jamaica Moana, Victoria Atkinson, SPACEFLOSS Collective, Jamie James and Robin Lao. Exhibition runs 17th February – 3 March.

UPDATES DECEMBER 2023

‘Furari Flores’ (Stealing Flowers) by Cara-Ann Simpson is a multi sensory art experience exploring the wonder of plants. Delving into this mesmerising visual, tactile, olfactory artwork of Cara-Ann Simpson’s uncovers so much more. My catalogue essay ‘Reaggragating a Body’, for her upcoming exhibition at UniSQ Art Gallery, rearranges a quote from Ross Gibson’s Memoryscopes (2015) and spans themes of illness and recovery, morphogenetic memory, plant chemosenses, social and cultural histories, and Cara’s relationship with Country influenced by Jarowair knowledge holders. If you have the capacity to support an independent artist living with disability with a tax deductible donation head to the Australian Cultural Fund.

UPDATES OCTOBER 2023

Medicament for Your Predicament is a finalist in the Fisher’s Ghost Award 2023! The finalist exhibition runs from 28 October – 8 December at Campbelltown Arts Centre.

Part 1 of Spell Kit for Navigating Uncertainty is online now as part of fo.am’s anarchiving project and via the wabisabi route. More to come soon…

UPDATES AUGUST 2023

Coming soon! So happy to be bringing Spell Kit for Navigating Uncertainty into the loving arms of Vitalstatistix and their audiences for a creative development at Adhocracy from 1-3 September. See all the other great artists and projects in the program here.

UPDATES JUNE 2023

Very much looking forward to being at APAM Rising this month!

UPDATES MAY 2023

Thanks Simone Ziaziaris for the lovely feature article in Wellbeing Magazine Issue 204 Thinkers and Doers, Close to Nature.

Looking forward to presenting a special edition of OPEN LAB! and a plenary artist talk next week at the VADEA OFF GRID Conference 2023.

UPDATES MARCH 2023

This month I’m very much enjoying getting to know the practice and projects of new mentees Amanda Bennetts, and Michelle Bucci during their Project 24 residencies, and Ruby Donohoe on This is Incomplete Without You.

UPDATES FEBRUARY 2023

This week Medicament For Your Predicament is making an appearance in the new context of a historic house Blenheim House Randwick 16 – 26 Feb open various times.

I’m navigating into 2023 with a commission from fo.am for their anarchiving project with Ingrid Vranken. Serendipitously coinciding with the ten year anniversary of my residency at fo.am. Such a special time with so many tendrils still emerging.

UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2022

Thanks for the feature! ABC Art Works Episode 27 with Sally Coleman came to OPEN LAB! at Highfield Farm and Woodland presented by The Wired Lab – it’s out just in time for agriculture ii Wired Open Day at Rosemount Farm Jugiong.

UPDATES AUGUST 2022

Thanks Hello Sunshine for this little interview ahead of Horizon Festival!

Coming up on 5th September I’m presenting a keynote for Field Trip Symposium on the Sunshine Coast.

Excited to announce the Guest Artist for Horizon Festival is Marisa Georgiou!

UPDATES JULY 2022

Very excited to announce that Medicament For Your Predicament is coming to Horizon Festival on the Sunshine Coast 27 August – 2 September! Limited places for OPEN LAB! get in quick!

I’m just back from a wonderful 9 day residency with The Wired Lab in the Snowy Valleys Region running OPEN LAB! workshops at Kestrel Nest Eco Hut on Highfield Farm and Woodland, Mt Adrah and at Brungle Health and Community Centre near Tumut.

Save the date! Medicament For Your Predicament is part of The Wired Lab’s agriculture ii project presented as a 1 day festival in Jugiong on Saturday 17th September. Tickets FREE and on sale soon!

UPDATES APRIL 2022

Coming up on 1st May I’ll be at Cut n Polish, Carriageworks, artist car boot sale and selling a range of prints, boxed editions, publications, scent samples. Come and say hi!

UPDATES MARCH 2022

This month I’m working on a number of collaborations with artists in Europe, joining a curatorial panel and planning presentations for later in the year.

UPDATES OCTOBER 2021

Look it’s a book! The article I co-authored with neurophysiotherapist Jane Chalmers for The Conversation in 2016 has been included in their book of the best 50 essays from the last decade! Available as paperback or e-book.

UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2021

Delighted to have been interviewed by Sirine Demachkie alongside Caro Verbeek on the sense of smell for ABC Radio Weekend Evenings. Listen here.

On the 8th September I’m (virtually) presenting and taking part in Return to Earth a symposium designed and facilitated by Amber Cronin for a small group of artists based in South Australia. Participants will then present a panel in October as part of Nature Festival at Art Gallery South Australia.

UPDATES AUGUST 2021

Next week I’ll be pitching Medicament for Your Predicament at the Australian Performing Arts Market as part of the (now virtual) APAM Gathering at Darwin Festival 10 -19th August. You can register for an online pass here!

UPDATES APRIL 2021

I’m incredibly honoured to have received the Australia Council for the Arts, Emerging and Experimental Arts Award 2021! Some of my art heroes have received this award making it all the more special to be counted alongside them. Thank you so much to those that nominated me.

Opening 10th April till 24th April at Metro Arts is against perfection (fissures and dust) an installation by Marisa Georgiou with voice and contemplation (Mary McIntyre), sound design (Sonny O’Brien) and scent (by me).

UPDATES MARCH 2021

This month marks the beginning of a new mentoring relationship with the inspirational Amber Cronin (SA) supported by the Australia Council for the Arts Future Leaders program.

UPDATES JANUARY 2021

Mixing a little atmospheric experiment for Erth’s Duba at Carriageworks and Badu at Maritime Museum this Sydney Festival.

UPDATES OCTOBER 2020

OPEN LAB! is SOLD OUT!

Thanks for the feature Australian Arts Review On the Couch

UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2020

Coming to Liveworks!

Medicament for Your Predicament is coming to Liveworks! 21 – 25 October OPEN LAB! workshop will beam into your kitchen daily and OPEN PHARMACY! installation will be open all hours at Carriageworks with IRL guest host 6-8pm. More information at Performance Space!

Meanwhile on 21st September at 1pm I’m doing a Lunchtime Conversation hosted by City of Sydney about the development of Medicament for Your Predicament. FREE with registration

UPDATES AUGUST 2020

The program is out for Adhocracy! 28 new works rolling out between 4-25 Sept. Here’s the link for my new work WE THE SICK [OF IT] going live on 4 September.

UPDATES JULY 2020

Vitalstatistix has just announced a killer line-up for Adhocracy this year and I’m very happy to be part of it. More info on the program and how you can access it coming soon.

UPDATES JUNE 2020

Other Worlds Zine Fair has gone online this year! You’ll find me in Aisle C.

UPDATES MARCH 2020

CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19 A special immersive screening event is coming up March 30th at Brunswick Picture House, Northern NSW! INGLORIOUS SMELL-O-VISION is a feature documentary by filmmakers Tammy Burnstock and John Anderson on the history of scented cinema and its unsung hero, osmologist and Swiss inventor Hans Laube. The film features never seen archival footage plus interviews with some of the greats of contemporary scent art, plus yours truly.

It screens with a revival of the animated short A Tale of Old Whiff.

More info here. And please support via the shop!

UPDATES JANUARY 2020

Cat Jones Productions has moved! 2020 begins in a new studio at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Powerhouse.

New publication! Black Magic: Fragility, Flux and the Rewilding of Art by Andrew Goodman is a chapter on my work Somatic Drifts in Immediations: Art Media, Event, edited by Erin Manning, Anna Munster and Bodil-Marie Stavning Thomsen, recently published by Open Humanities press. Download the FREE PDF.

UPDATES DECEMBER 2019

Bringing my Medicament For Your Predicament wares to Brisbane for a residency with Metro Arts on Hope Street 2-24 December! So happy to be part of the beginning of the company’s transformation and the first residency at Hope Street.

UPDATES OCTOBER 2019

Already looking forward to 2020! I’m joining The Powerhouse NSW Creative Industries Residency Program along with a great team of artists and makers with all kinds of potential for collaboration with thanks to Lisa Havilah for such great vision.

UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2019

Dust and Shadow #2 by fo.am is out in print, e-book and in expanded digital form. There’s something from me on #olufsenandi #lettherightonein including a transmission from the Australian Museum on behaviours recorded in my katydid home videos.

UPDATES AUGUST 2019

Coming up in Adelaide my new work/shop is part of Adhocracy at Vitalstatistix 6-7 September! Medicament for your Predicament

UPDATES JULY 2019

DLUX Constellations podcast EP#11 “The Plants’ with Monica Gagliano and I is out now. Plus you can subscribe to the whole series on iTunes.

UPDATES APRIL 2019

Buzzer at Blast Theory, Brighton UK

On 4 May I’m joining the Institute of Art and Olfaction and friends to present at the Experimental Scent Summit, Amsterdam.

On 15 April I’m checking in to Blast Theory (UK) to be artist-in-residence for the next little while!

Recording live on 2 April and soon to be released is DLUX podcast The Constellations Episode #11 ‘The Plants’ with Monica Gagliano and myself on vegetal philosophy, Somatic Drifts, neuroscience and plant science.

UPDATES JANUARY 2019

Recently published in full and currently available online and FREE to download till 13 March, is “Embodying the Illusion of a strong fit back in people with chronic low back pain. A pilot proof of concept study“ a co-authored paper inspired by my findings in Plantarum: Empathic Limb Clinic and Somatic Drifts. Published in Musculoskeletal Science and Practice, Volume 39, February 2019, Pages 178-183.

In the first week of February I’m off to The WIRED Lab and Wiradjuri country to begin a new commission for agri[culture] ii alongside Steve Bull from pvi collective, Julie Vulcan, Martyn Coutts and Anna Schoo from Field Theory, Sarah Last, Dave Burraston, Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphries, and Eugene Ughetti from Speak Percussion.

Coming up on 16 February is one last open day for Dust, an exhibition on insects, collections and care at Woodford Academy Blue Mountains. The exhibition includes my tiny audio visual installation #olufsenandi #lettherightonein and zine Habits of a Katydid: Rituals of Mind.

On 13 February I’m showcasing Century’s Breath as part of The Sensorium trade exhibition for The Five Senses of GLAMR session ALIA Conference plus slipping something special into delegate showbags. The session also features lightning talks, presentations and experiences from augmented reality artists including Alison Bennett, Stephen Loo, Thomas Wing-Evans, David Woodbridge, Anthea Taylor and myself Chaired by Deb Verhoven and Sue Hutley.

UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2018

Scent of Sydney is a finalist in the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award at Campbelltown Art Centre! Featuring an excerpt with the scents and sounds of Resistance:Shades of Mettle by Pat Fiske and Zaatar Wah Zait by Patrick Abboud. Open to the public 3 November – 13 December.

A Treatise on the Art of Grafting: Failure to Thrive is a sculptural installation of failed protoypes in prequel to my horticulture and neuroscience experiments that also comment on the cultural thievery and severences created by colonisation showing as part of This Mess We’re In curated by Tarsh Bates, at Fremantle Town Hall as part of Unhallowed Arts alongside Quite Frankly It’s a Monster Conference. Opening 13th October.

#olufsenandi #lettherightonein is a multi-species study on medicine and iatrogenesis, tiny three channel video and zine and part of DUST an exhibition on insects collections and care curated by Jacqueline Spedding for the National Trust at Woodford Academy, Blue Mountains, 15 September, 20 October and 17 November.

The Plant Contract

UPDATES FEBRUARY 2018

I’m thrilled to be entangled with Michael Marder, Monica Gagliano, the water lily and other entities in Prudence Gibson’s monograph The Plant Contract published by Brill Rudopi.

“Eco-punk Australian artist Cat Jones completely dismantles our perceptions of plants. [Her concepts] are a queering. Jones disrupts our sensory perceptions and adjusts our sexual self-identities…The transgender trans-species model of her work fits within an aesthetic of queer play and associated politics.”

Prudence Gibson, The Plant Contract

UPDATES JANUARY 2018

Queer Ecologies, Special Issue, CSPA, Quarterly 19, features my article Olfactive Ecologies (p7-21), an overview of my scent projects and their entanglements plus Anatomy’s Confection as front and back cover art.

UPDATES NOVEMBER 2017

My new work Insecta Delecta, commissioned by The Wired Lab and created in collaboration with chef Soon Lee Low is featured on ABC News. You can watch the excerpt video segment and read the accompanying online article.

UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2017

Coming to Melbourne! to present at Experimenta Social #13 Participation Sense and Taste, at ACMIx 11th October. I’ll be featuring a selection of scents from Century’s Breath and speaking alongside artist Elizabeth Willing as part of the Experimenta Make Sense Triennial Exhibition. More info and bookings here.

UPDATES AUGUST 2017

Tickets are now on sale for agri(culture) 21 October at The Wired Lab here! Early Bird discounts till 30 September. I’ll be presenting my new work Insecta Delecta with molecular chef Soon Lee Low!

So many great artists for this magical day! Featuring Field Theory, Julie Vulcan, Tamara Dean, The Ronalds, Wiradjuri Weavers, Chris Watson (UK) and so many more!

UPDATE 25 AUGUST 2017

Last week I was artist in residence at The Wired Lab beginning a new commission for  their agri(culture) project working with molecular chef Soon Lee Low on edible insects! agri(culture) is on Saturday 21st October in Cootamundra with a host of artists including Field Theory with Kids vs Art, Julie Vulcan, The Ronalds and more. Makes for a great country weekender. Save the date! Tickets will be on sale soon. Subscribe to The Wired Lab for updates.

Cat Jones is In Wild Air
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UPDATE 29 JUNE 2017

I’m the guest writer for In Wild Air this week!

Delivered on a Monday morning this newsletter project by Heath Killen is full of ideas, people, places and culture . This week I’m ruminating on microbes, scent, fermentation, personal and political histories of sewing, rewilding and bias.

UPDATE 23 MAY 2017

Very excited to be working with The WIRED Lab again this year on a new commission for WIRED Open Day agri(culture) 21 October 2017. Subscribe to The WIRED Lab for their ticket sale launch coming out soon.

UPDATE 23 MARCH 2017

I’m featured in the new ABC Iview web series Shock Art in Episode 4 Fear of the Female presented by Christina Chau and produced by Periscope Pictures.

UPDATE 1 February 2017

This month I’m traveling to Calgary, Banff, Vancouver, Bristol, Berlin, Brighton and London to visit and meet a whole range of festivals, collaborators and inspirational artist peers thanks to the support of Sydney festival, pUsh festival, Banff centre for creativity and arts, Arts NSW, and the Australia Council.

UPDATE 23 January 2017

Scent of Sydney has a feature on Radio National Books and Arts – you can listen to the podcast here

UPDATE 28 DECEMBER 2016

Speaker lists have been announced for our public talks program for Scent of Sydney.

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UPDATE 14 DECEMBER 2016

Realtime’s Gail Priest has written a lovely preview –  Making scents of Sydney

UPDATE 1 NOVEMBER 2016

I’ve been officially inducted into the UTS Superlab today!

Scent of Sydney by Cat Jones 2016

UPDATE 26 OCTOBER 2016

Launch day today for my next big project Scent of Sydney for Sydney Festival 2017! I’m artist-in-residence at the UTS Superlab and presenting the project in Bay 19 Carriageworks.

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SPELL KIT FOR NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY

Spell Kit for Navigating Uncertainty by Ingrid Vranken (BE) and Cat Jones is an instructional artwork that blends practices of spell work with instruments of navigation and the psychology of way-finding to create speculative objects for routing/rooting through uncertain times.

Comprising an essay, toolkit, field notes, and a series of workshops and (in development) a limited edition box kit, the project embodies a playfulness that incorporates gravitas and humour, expertise and ineptitude, and ultimately a sense of imaginative agency.  

Cat and Ingrid bring together their knowledge and practices in ethnobotany, chemical and metaphysical processes, hauntology, sensory, participatory art.

Commissioned by fo.am for their anarchiving project (online and print publications forthcoming 2024).

Part 1 of Spell Kit for Navigating Uncertainty is online now via the wabisabi route. More to come soon.

Appearances

26th June 2024 Project 24, 2nd Space, Nambour

1 – 3rd September 2023 Adhocracy, Vitalstatistix

Supporters

Commissioned by fo.am, supported by Adhocracy, Vitalstatistix and Project 24, 2nd Space, Sunshine Coast Council.

EQUAL PARTS MILK

The first in her Medicine for Misandry series, Equal Parts Milk marks a new investigation by Jones beginning with a probe of the ‘living-dead’ tissue of the male breast.

First presented as a performance lecture at Quite Frankly, It’s A Monster Conference, a centenary celebration in honour of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by SymbioticA in 2018, this new project exposes and expounds on subjugated medical knowledge from a surprising range of sources crossing cultural traditions, medical history, animal husbandry, multi-species mashups and popular culture. Jones presents an hypothesis along with various evidence based but often humorous sample methodologies and invites the audience into a respectful, inclusive and heartfelt experiment.

Equal Parts Milk is a multi-platform project comprising performance lectures, imagery, objects, live art/actions, workshops, documentary interviews including opportunities for multi-disciplinary partnerships.

Seeking to soothe a complexity of ailments arising from unrequited equality and toxic masculinity, including misandry itself. Medicine for Misandry is for and by misandrists, or is it?

If you are a presenter interested in supporting queer, interdisciplinary work that inspires curiosity and conversation and want to be part of fleshing this project out please get in touch.

Conceived with the support of the state government through Create NSW Performing Arts and Music Fellowship with research conducted at Wellcome Collection, London.

Thanks to Elizabeth Stephens for early support through her ARC Future Fellowship, Quite Frankly it’s a Monster Conference, Kelli McCluskey and Steve Bull, Chris Cobilis for stepping up as the first poster boy, and to Lois Weaver for important conversations.

WE THE SICK [OF IT]…

A circle of dashes with words in typewriter font capitals reads around the edge "WE THE SICK" with "OF IT" in the centre

WE THE SICK [OF IT] is a participatory project that generates a series of micro manifestos about the health of the social body, engaging with poetics, play and radical care practices.

With provocateur Kelli McCluskey.

In development as part of Adhocracy 2020 with Vitalstatistix.

Visit Vitalstatistix for more info and participate via the link below.

YOUR MANIFESTO [HERE]

Supported by

THE PLANT CONTRACT

Prudence Gibson’s The Plant Contract: art’s return to vegetal life, argues that visual and performance art can help change our perception of the vegetal world, and can return us to nature and thought. Via an investigation into the wasteland, robotany, feminist plants, and nature rights, this phytology-love story investigates how contemporary art is mediating the effects of plant-blindness, caused by human disassociation from the natural world. It is also a gesture of respect for the genius of vegetal life, where new science proves plants can learn, communicate, remember, make decisions, and associate. Art is a litmus test for how climate change affects human perception. This book responds to that test by expressing plant-philosophy to a wider public, through an interrogation of plant-art.

Brill Rudopi

Gibson discusses several of my works in The Plant Contract including Somatic Drifts and Scent of Sydney.

“Eco-punk Australian artist, Cat Jones completely dismantles our perceptions of plants in her performance experience. Her concepts of plant life in us, rather than behind us or in front of us, are a queering. Jones disrupts our sensory perceptions and adjusts our sexual self-identities. She does, this by transforming our bodies, from man to woman, human to plant. The transgender, trans-species model of her work fits within an aesthetic of queer play, as well as the associated politics.” p 115

Gibson PA, 2018, The Plant Contract: Art’s Return to Vegetal Life, Brill Rodopi,  http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004360549

From Series: Critical Plant Studies, Volume: 3

BLACK MAGIC: FRAGILITY, FLUX AND THE REWILDING OF ART

“For, as much as rules or conditions can be abstracted and quantified, both rewilding and Jones’ artwork remain also magical: mysterious alien and fragile, operating beyond the reach of the human participant, instead entertaining on an environmental scale…”

Black Magic: Fragility, Flux and the Rewilding of Art, a chapter by Andrew Goodman on quantum physics, ecology and shamanismon with reference to my work Somatic Drifts. Featured in Immediation: Art, Media, Event, editors Erin Manning, Anna Munster, Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen published by Open Humanities Press, 2019.

Free Download

“…Even as scientists are studying Jones’ work to unlock its ‘secrets’, cognitive or other scientific explanations are never going to be able to satisfactorily explain the event unless they are prepared to abandon classical physics and embrace the radicalism of thermodynamics…”

DUST & SHADOW READER #2

A selection of words and images from me are featured in the latest publication by By Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney of fo.am.

Dust & Shadow Reader #2 is dedicated to Attunement.

It comes in print, pdf and expanded digital version in the libarynth.

ABSTRACT

The Dust & Shadow reader #2 is a commonplace booklet exploring attunement as a proposition for engaging with the world, Earth-bound environments and their inhabitants, in a continuously changing field of relationships.

The motley collection of textual and visual excerpts in this reader offers glimpses of attunement from different perspectives, including ecological, technological, animist, transhumanist, artistic, scientific and philosophical points of view. The various perspectives present in the reader suggest a range of different ways of attuning to the wider (and wider-than-human) world. Some are intimate accounts of personal experiences, others present a more theoretical inclination. Some offer imaginative prompts, others concrete exercises. The reader hints at attunement as a way to mitigate the effects of environmental and cultural turbulence. It also invites us to experiment with attunement to reinvigorate our relationships with an uncertain present and unknowable futures.

With contributions from Ron Broglio, Edith Doove, Daniel Gilfillan, Erica Hanson, Cat Jones, Theun Karelse, Kevin McHugh & Scott Warren, Sam Nightingale, Adam Nocek, Anna-Maria Orru & Morten Søndergard, Jerneja Rebernak and others.

MEDICAMENT FOR YOUR PREDICAMENT

“Focused…tender…rare…your work has a unique ability to connect us with ourselves and humanity.” Participant, Adhocracy

“Such a beautiful experience…[we] loved it, such heart and warmth and sharing – it was a tonic in itself.” Participant, Liveworks

Part apothecary, part apothegmy, Medicament For Your Predicament, is a reflective, sensory workshop and feminist formulary that compounds political pharmacopeias. Ointments and salves, tonics, gargles and powders to soothe our soluble and insoluble bodies.

Drawing together her botanic, sensory and social practices, Jones invites participants to join these hands on kitchen/garden/lab conversations and contribute further to her ongoing research around medicine + feminist futures.

From antidotes to ire, diuretics for disillusionment and cures for capitalism, Medicament For Your Predicament gently applies a drawing ointment to modern maladies and creates recipes for transformation.

This flexible artwork comprises OPEN LAB! a sensory workshop to reflect on matters close to the heart, for participants to formulate and compound their own pharmacopeias, and OPEN PHARMACY! an installation come subversive dispensary showcasing medicaments and prescriptions created through OPEN LAB! offering quick and dirty prescriptions, bespoke merchandise, serving up medicinal beverages and the effervescent power of conversation.

FEATURED ON

ABC Artworks Episode 27 with Sally Coleman

APPEARING NEXT

PROVENANCE

2024 Presentation, Adhocracy, Vitalstatistix, Port Adelaide, with Guest Artist Ruby Donohoe, 6-8th September.

2023 Finalist Exhibition Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Art Centre, Sat 28 Oct – Fri 8 Dec

2023 Keynote presentation and workshop, VADEA OFF-GRID Conference, UTS, 13 May

2022 Presentation and bespoke commission agriculture ii, The Wired Lab, Jugiong NSW, 17 Sept

With Guest Artist Christie Woodhouse, Creative Producer Anna Schoo and Installer James Farley.

2022 In person premiere presentation, Horizon Art Festival, The Old Lock Up, Maroochydore, QLD, 27 Aug – 2 Sept

With Guest Artist Marisa Georgiou, Installers Mary Eggleston and Fritz Schwartz, Creative Producer Amie Moffat, Invigilator Ruby Donohoe.

2020 Hybrid premiere presentation, Liveworks, Sydney 21-25 October 2020 See Performance Space.

With guest artists Rebecca Conroy (live), Ollie Black (online), Neil Simpson (lighting), Tessa Zettel (install).

DEVELOPMENT

METRO ARTS at Hope Street, Brisbane, QLD, December 2019.

ADHOCRACY, VITALSTATISTIX, Port Adelaide, SA, September 2019. Curated by Emma Webb, Paul Gazzola, Hen Vaughan, Jamila Main, Thom Smyth.

Elsewhere and Otherwise, PAF, France, June 2019

BLAST THEORY, Brighton, UK, May 2019

  • Medicament for Your Predicament by Cat Jones (workshop view), Horizon Festival, IN|Ari. Image (C) 2022 courtesy of the artist.
  • Medicament for Your Predicament by Cat Jones (workshop view), Horizon Festival, IN|Ari. Image (C) 2022 courtesy of the artist.

This project is supported by Performance Space, City of Sydney, the federal government through the Australia Council for the Arts, pvi collective and Blast Theory through a program instigated by Sophie Travers; City of Sydney, Vitalstatistix and Metro Arts on Hope Street. Conceived with support from the state government of New South Wales through a Create NSW Performing Arts and Music Fellowship.

Special thanks to provocateurs Ju Row Farr, Maja Kuzmanovic and to Lois Weaver for sharing their own unique formulas, recipes and action ingredients and to Ashley Dowell and Peter Mouatt Southern Cross University. Thanks to Helen Jones in Brisbane, Françoise Piron, Ollie Black, Georgie Davill, Emma O’Neill, Isobel Moore, Gemma Hansen and Jess Martin in Adelaide; Clare Plumley, Dan Lamont and Yin Wai Wong, Brighton.

 

EMBODYING THE ILLUSION OF A STRONG FIT BACK

Published in Muscoloskeletal Science Journal, Volume 39, February 2019, “Embodying the illuson of a strong fit back, a pilot proof of concept study” by Nishigami, Martin Wand, Newport, Ratcliff, Themelis, Moen, Jones, Moseley and Stanton. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msksp.2018.07.002d

This paper provides preliminary evidence of therapeutic effects arising from the experience of an embodiment illusion in participants with low back pain. The study came about as a result of observations made during the development of my work Somatic Drifts whilst Artist-in-Residence, Affiliate Researcher, Sansom Institute, Body in Mind, University of South Australia and School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University Western Australia through ANAT’s Synapse residency.

A TREATISE ON THE ART OF GRAFTING: FAILURE TO THRIVE

Installation view, A Treatise on the Art of Grafting: Failure to Thrive by Cat Jones 2018. Image courtesy of the artist.
“Confronting, beautiful and bizarre, the radical works of This Mess We’re In”
Jenny Scott, Seesaw Magazine

Mixed media installation, plaster forms (hands, finger roots), plaster tape (memory knots and bandages), vintage cutting tool and  plant materials – Allocasuarina fraseriana (She-oak), Banksia serrata (Saw banskia), Cephalotus follicularis (Carnivorous pitcher plant), Acacia cyclops (Red-eyed Wattle), Agonis flexuosa (Weeping peppermint).

Graft failures occur due to physical damage, incompatibility and maladaptation. The abandoned prototypes of A Treatise on the Art of Grafting: Failure to Thrive are a prequel to Plantarum: Empathic Limb Clinic and Somatic Drifts, these sculptural performance works are experiments between the human mind and flora, neuroscience and horticulture, forms of “synaptic grafting”.

These artworks grow somewhere between speculative reality and future. They play on the irony of mediated experiences with nature and are rooted in therapeutic proposals for phantom limb pain. They tangle and transgress cortical re-organisation theories with illusion and shamanic healing practices. Their intentional complication of the metaphysical with empirical is extended through co-authored publication of novel neuroscience and pain studies[1].

Where the performances embody female self-authored scientific knowledge the installation is a contraindication for broken female authority in plant medicine lore and science.

These failed implantations further consider broader national and global separations and loss, the severances of colonization. Here in these wastelands, here lie the vestiges of land grabs, cuts to country and cultural thievery.

Installed as part Wunderkammer, abandoned laboratory, gardeners shed and family vault.

Exhibiting 13 October – 2 November 2018 in This Mess We’re In curated by Tarsh Bates and part of Unhallowed Arts. Installed in The Vault at Fremantle Customs House.

Special thanks to Tarsh Bates, Sue Hauri-Downing, Laura Barendregt, Ann Jones and Alison Jones.

[1] Nishigami, Wand; Newport, Ratcliffe, Themelis, Moen, Jones, Moseley, Stanton; Embodying the illusion of a strong, fit back in people with chronic low back pain. A pilot proof-of-concept study.; Musculoskeletal Science and Practice Journal; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msksp.2018.07.002

#OLUFSENANDI #LETTHERIGHTONEIN

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#olufsenandi #lettherightonein is a multi-species study on teachers, medicine and iatrogenesis.

A reflection on care and self-care documenting Jones’ experience of cohabitation with a free-roaming nocturnal Katydid during a time of extraordinary illness including parisitosis.

Comprising a tiny three channel video installation installed in the inkwells of old school desks. Each video loop documents the daily rituals of olufsen appearing and disappearing into darkness along with their elusive stridulations. Accompanied by a tiny fold out zine Habits of a Katydid or Rituals of Mind (after Allard 1928) with seven micro chapters – Hunger, Thirst, Cleanliness, Rest, Metaphysics, Freedom – and folding out overleaf, a colour Katydid mandala.

#olufsenandi #lettherightonein premiered at DUST, an exhibition on insects, collections and care, curated by Jacqueline Spedding, for Woodford Academy, National Trust heritage museum, Blue Mountains, September- November 2018.

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Dedicated to Alison Jones and all the creatures that care for her. With thanks to Abigail Sheppard, Peter Wielk and Elizabeth Macovaz.

CSPA QUARTERLY | Q19: QUEER ECOLOGIES

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FEATURE Olfactive Ecologies by Cat Jones pages 7-21

Guest edited by Tarsh Bates.

Queer ecologies slither through the wanton matteriality of naturecultures, including the perversity of electrons, the polyamorous tendrils of lightning, the deep futurity of plastic, the trans-species animacies of xeno-estrogens, and the polymorphous fecundity of holobiontism, and on and on and on. O yes yes yes. This issue invites you to writhe in the queer resistances of anti-normativity, anti-futurity and anti-reproductivity, the queer possibilities of performativity, diversity and kinship, and the precarity, intimacy and adaptability of evolutionary theories of sexual, natural and social selection and phenotypic plasticity. It slides through sustainability and slips into compostability, sifting through the transient, the fecund, the toxic, the permanent, the deviant, the perverse and the selective to unearth the spacetimematter of proliferation, extinction and thennowwhen.

PURCHASE

I have a few copies of this print publication available for postage within Australia.

via CSPA Quarterly | Q19: Queer Ecologies | MagCloud

CSPA Quarterly 19 Queer Ecologies

CSPA Quarterly 19 Queer Ecologies A4 Journal, gloss paper. Price includes postage within Australia only.

A$28.00

OTHERWISE

Available via CSPA Quarterly | Q19: Queer Ecologies | MagCloud

Buy Print: $15.00 USD

Buy Digital: $3.00 USD free with Print Purchase

Buy Print + Digital: $15.00 USD

INSECTA DELECTA

Insecta Delecta. Image by Cat Jones 2017.

“Gourmet helpings of edible insects thrown into a sudden field-based Blade Runner future of insectivorous farming.”

Neill Overton, Realtime

Insecta Delecta is a sensory exploration towards an insectivorous future. Inside an edible vivarium Cat Jones presents recipes for assimilation…and all that frass*! With ‘exotic ingredients’ by chef Soon Lee Low.

*frass: 1. to feast, to devour (like an animal) 2. insecta ejectamenta

Presented deep in the cattle & sheep farming country of the Riverina, Insecta Delecta responds to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s 2013 appeal to promote entomophagy (eating insects) and address the future of food security in a global population boom.

Jones immerses audiences in a darkly humourous intervention that challenges Western diets, speculates on culinary and cultural futures to create an ironic commentary on capitalist commodification and industrialisation for the purpose of sustainability.

Installation View, Insecta Delecta, The Wired Lab. Image by Cat Jones 2017.

Jones’ research and practice in making Insecta Delecta includes entomology, animal husbandry, nutrition, cultural histories, social habits, cognitive behavior psychology, nutrition and gastronomy.

In making Insecta Delecta, Jones acknowledges and pays respect to the cultural practices of traditional custodians and the complex systems of sustainable ecology embedded within traditional cultures. Insecta Delecta premiered on Wiradjuri country during Bogong moth season, close to a migratory pathway.

Created by Cat Jones in collaboration with chef Soon Lee Low. Performance by Cat Jones and Tom Hogan. Sound design by Tom Hogan. Video Remix Cat Jones with Mark Greco and Ian Gibbins. Documentation Damien Jenkins, Next in Line Films and Joshua Thomas.

Commissioned by The Wired Lab, creators of landscape scale art, for the agri(culture) project, a series of events exploring the rural vernacular, ancient and emerging agricultural systems, curated by Sarah Last.

Premiere the agri(culture) project, Wired Open Day, Muttama NSW, 21 October 2017.

Media Previews The Plant Hunter and Realtime.

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Acknowledgements

agri(culture) was funded by the federal government through the Australia Council for the arts, its arts funding and advisory body; Festivals Australia; and Create NSW.

Special thanks to Robert Blackburn at Macleay Museum,  Paul Weston and Mark Greco at Charles Sturt University, Tom Hogan, Julie Vulcan, Anna Schoo, Dave Burraston, Sarah Last, John Hurst, Cate Hull, Teik Kim Pok, Kayla Shephard at Something Wild; Sky Blackburn at Edible Bug Shop, Eddie and Sharon at Butterfly Adventures and many others.

 

 

IN WILD AIR

Untitled

 

In Wild Air is a Heath Killen Project

VOLUME III | EDITION XXIII by Cat Jones

THE MICROBIAL COMMONS

Rebecca Conroy’s Marrickville School of Economics at Frontyard is an artist lead curriculum experimenting with new ways to do economy. I took part in the autumnal session, Femmenomics in the Oikos, considering feminist interpretations such as exclusion/inclusion of the messy porous body, and investigations of embodied capital by queering the economy.

In one of the sessions we discussed a reading by Elinor Ostrom which examines the microbiological commons and its new products being generated from advances in technology (culturing, preservation, genome sequencing and other data); as well as who it’s generated by; and to whom it is accessible. Raising questions of ethics and biological gatekeeping discussions lead us to the subject of significant gaps in medical research. One that is now being widely disseminated is the censorship of the clitoris from anatomy textbooks on which my work Anatomy’s Confection is based. However, there are many other areas of concern, some of which were highlighted recently by Kayla Webley Adler.

Much data that we rely on, omits female specific information. It’s been selectively excluded from scientific experiments, and even pharmacology testing over many years. The dire consequences for an unsuspecting female might include diagnostics such as the greatly varied symptoms of heart attack and the threshold for side effects or even toxicity in pharmaceutical dosage. Researchers frequently cite exclusion reasons like data reliability due to hormonal fluctuations, or the risk of pregnancy during data collection – adding to the hormone argument ethical resistance with the involvement of a foetus.

In the case of pharmaceuticals you, or your doctor can check that they’ve have been tested for women and if not, prescribed an alternative. Remember that increased demand will increase supply in the oikos.

Read more on

DR JACKIE MORIE

FERMENTATIONS. DOING NOTHING AT FO.AM

THE SINGER SEWING MACHINE

ILLUSIONS AND REWILDING

CUT IT ON THE BIAS

via Cat Jones is In Wild Air

TREE

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Traveling through the intricacies of imagination the artists, Cat Jones (Australia) and Sylvia Rimat (Germany/UK), create an experience that leads audiences through forests in two geographic locations.

Tree delves into the depths of imagination drawing on Neuroscience, plant signalling, the symbology of forests, and our very own personal imagined stories related to the woods.

Tree is an audio walk that takes place in Australia and Britain/ Europe and takes the form of a duet, to explore each different and far away geographic location, to be partly experienced and partly imagined.

Tree includes an associated book project in collaboration with neuroscientists. Each site-specific commission is accompanied by a workshop with local residents.

Tree strives to make bold connections between academic research, cultural narratives and our personal experience. The project aims to raise questions about identity, connectivity and how we interact with the world around us.

PARTNERS

This project has been assisted by the federal government through the The Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Tree has been supported by residencies with Big Ci (Blue Mountains, Australia) and the Internationale Waldkunst Zentrum (Darmstadt, Germany).

ANATOMY’S CONFECTION KIT AND ZINE

From the live artwork and installation Anatomy’s Confection, a social surgery and labour of love on the clitoris.

A box kit for the anatomically playful, that delves into the history of censorship, a speculative text on the social and evolutionary affects of censorship, diagrams old and new of the full anatomy of the clitoris, and materials for you to conduct your own social surgery by yourself or with friends.

Anatomy’s Confection was featured on ABC Iview’s Shock Art series Episode 4 by Periscope Pictures.

ANATOMY’S CONFECTION – SOCIAL SURGERY KIT

Instructions, medical literature and illustrations, surgical materials and edible confectionery.

A$20.00

POSTCARDS

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Info

  • Postcards Set includes five artwork postcards either as a mixed set or the same image.

    Price includes postage.

    $12.00

    POSTCARDS SET

    Set of five postcards from Cat Jones projects including Anatomy's Confection (2), Insecta Delecta, A Walk [With Herbivores], Scent of Sydney. Price includes postage within Australia.

    A$12.00

SCENT OF SYDNEY

Scent of Sydney by Cat Jones 2016

“A fascinatingly distinctive work…engrossing and altogether memorable”

Keith Gallasch, Realtime 137

“Exquisite & intimate” 

Jeremy Smith, Australia Council for the Arts

“You don’t walk out the same way you walk in.”

Paolo, East Timor

Can you really know a city by the way it smells?

In Scent of Sydney, artist Cat Jones distills more than first impressions seeking to capture the real substance of Sydney, its stories of landscape, democracy, resistance, competition, and extravagance.

Through a series of conversations and debates you’re invited to contribute to the creation of this olfactory portrait of our city and with your own ideas and stories of Sydney’s identity. From sophisticated airs to dirty laundry these conversations and ideas will be opened up and transformed – through scent.

The exhibition featuring audio interviews and accompanying scents with Sydney change-makers Patrick Abboud, Auntie Frances Bodkin,  Dr Michael Darcy, Elizabeth Farrelly, Pat Fiske, Prof William Gladstone, Sarah Houbolt, Lyall Munro Jnr, Anne Summers and William Yang.

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of public panels, curated by Cat Jones, expanding on each theme with speakers including The Hon. Michael Kirby, Larissa Behrendt, Michael Lavarch, Tania Leimbach, Illaria Vanni, Jeremy Walker, Jaimie Leonarder, Andrew Geeves, Dr Mem Mahmut, Fiona Winning and featured interviewees.

You can listen to featured interviews and read the web anthology at the Scent of Sydney website.

Commissioned by Sydney Festival 2017.

2017 Presented Carriageworks, Bay 19, Sydney Festival

2018 Finalist exhibition, Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize

2018 Finalist exhibition, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Art Centre

2024 Future Dreaming, exhibition curated by Emmaly Langridge, Randwick Town Hall, Mardi Gras

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Credits

Concept, design, direction, curation, interviews, scent composition, web build: Cat Jones

Live artists: Rebecca Conroy, Sumugan Sivanesan, Nick Atkins, Maria White

Spatial Design: Pip Runciman

Graphic Design: Anais Taylor

Lighting: Neil Simpson

Sound Editor: Miles Martignoni and Ninah Kopel

Creative Producer: Fiona Winning

Project Manager: Imogen Semmler

Scent of Sydney, Sydney Festival. Image by Cat Jones 2017 Scent of Sydney, Sydney Festival. Image by Cat Jones 2017 Ceramic Cloche and Titles, Scent of Sydney, Sydney Festival. Image by Cat Jones 2017

Special thanks to Wesley Enoch, commissioning Artistic Director Sydney Festival 2017; Fiona Winning; project partners University Technology Sydney, Destination NSW, Naomi Taplin, Studio Enti, Sarah Last, Wired Lab, and to Alex Hyvonen, Amalina Whitaker, Bill Booth, Jason Ashmore, Whitney Eglington, Sarah Last, Jake Morcom, Ninah Kopel, Michael Cutrupi, Boni Carincross, Amelia Wallin and many more.

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ECOSEXUAL BATHHOUSE

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As Associate Artist for Ecosexual Bathhouse by Pony Express, Cat Jones’ roles included provocateur, writer, voiceover and bespoke scents.

Ecosexual Bathhouse is an immersive experience that invites you to leave the urban wasteland behind and open yourself up to an intimate encounter with the biosphere.

Perth-based artist collective Pony Express offer a cave of wonder with a variety of eco-erotic experiences. Experiment with pollination, unwind in the sauna or be guided by a bathhouse regular toward your own organic awakening. Catering to all—from the mildly bio-curious to the environmentally experienced—we encourage you to embrace the earth and give in to your budding naturist.

Drawing on the Eco-sex manifesto by Annie Sprinkle and Dr Elizabeth Stephens, Ecosexual Bathhouse explores a radical environmentalism where the political becomes very personal. The six awe-inspiring spaces of Ecosexual Bathhouse invite us to reconsider the relationship between humans and nature: because if we can learn to the love the Earth, then maybe we can save it.

CONNECTING TO COUNTRY

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video Info

  • DISRUPTED FESTIVAL OF IDEAS, State Library of WA 30 July 2016

    Facilitated by Terri-ann White with Dr Noel Nannup, Stephen D. Hopper, Mike Bianco, and Cat Jones

    This panel proposed the question – How do we express our relationship to country? How far do we look into its future? Five diverse thinkers discuss ways we can protect the natural value of our land and create a deeper  connection to place. The intersection of Noongar knowledge, western science, botany, beekeeping, activism and human plant empathy is a heady mix. How far does our personal commitment need to stretch?

    Disrupted Festival LIVE – Connecting to Country – PANEL – Disrupted – Festival of Ideas Perth

SOMATIC DRIFTS

Somatic Drifts, Adhocracy Vitalstatistix. Image by Cat Jones 2014

” Exceptional…a sexuate and plant species becoming.”

Prudence Gibson and Monica Gagliano, The Feminist Plant

“Unexpectedly affecting in its therapeutic, closely guided dislocations of sense and self as well as its emotive engagement…”

Breakdown and Repair, Ben Brooker, Realtime 122

“Transporting and curious….like nothing else I’ve ever done…the yearning or the desire for it [the touch] is palpable.”

“Stunning. Like time traveling.”

“Loving and caring and fragile.”

Participants, Adhocracy, Vitalstatistix

Somatic Drifts is a live, one to one artwork and accumulative audio-visual installation. Exploring trans-human and inter-species empathy this intimate sensory experience enables the participant to experience the bodies of other entities, through touch and illusion. These mediatised, shamanic drifts enquire, What realm does the human exist within? How far can we drift? What can this drift enable us to change?

The multi-channel installation accumulates the donated bodies of participants and the narratives that inhabit them, to travel beyond their own boundaries across geography, time and consciousness.

Concept, design and performance Cat Jones with sound design by Melissa Hunt.

Installation view, Somatic Drifts by Cat Jones, Radical Ecologies, PICA. Image by ok media group 2016.

View trailer below (best with headphones)

Presentations

Radical Ecologies, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art 30 July- 4 September 2016. Premiere of Somatic Drifts including live experience 2-6 August, accumulative 3 channel video installation, concrete poetry and limited edition scent.

The Art of Pain, Bob Hawke Centre, Kerry Packer Gallery, Adelaide, 20 -31 July 2015. Soft opening of Somatic Drifts live experience and installation whilst in development. Presented by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, Pain Adelaide and the Australian Network for Art & Technology, The Art of Pain is an exhibition and symposium on the experience of chronic pain. Somatic Drifts weaves compelling ideas between our experience and capacity for empathy and the alleviation of pain.

Publicity

Radio National Life Matters: Art of Pain rendering the invisible visible

Art of Pain: Playing Tricks with the Mind: Illusion and its Affect

 

Acknowledgements

Somatic Drifts has been supported by the Australian government through the Australia Council its arts funding and advisory body; Bundanon Trust AIR; Creative Practice Lab, School of the Arts and Media, UNSW; Adhocracy 2014, Vitalstatistix; and Waverley Studio AIR and SymbioticA. Research for this project has been supported by ANAT Synapse Residency with UWA School of Medicine and Pharmacology and UNISA, Sansom Institute, Body in Mind.

Special thanks to wunderkind Mark Mitchell, Gordy Rymer, Vicki Sowry, Su Goldfish, Prof Stephan Schug, Prof Lorimer Moseley, the Body in Mind research team, students of the Nuragili Winter School, Rene Christen, Antonietta Morgillo, Kate Brown, Cate Hull, Min Wong, Hayley Stone and many others.

 

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WHY THE CLITORIS DOESN’T GET THE ATTENTION IT DESERVES

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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Don’t know much about the clitoris? It’s probably not your fault.
Jen/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Jane Chalmers, Western Sydney University and Cat Jones, University of South Australia

Did you know the clitoris is a large and complex organ? If not, it’s probably not your fault: in anatomical textbooks, few words and diagrams are devoted to understanding the clitoris. Most label the very small portion of the organ visible on diagrams of the vulva, when in fact it’s almost entirely under the skin.

Studies of historical anatomical textbooks have shown that depictions of the clitoris were significantly limited and often omitted completely from the mid-19th into the 20th century.

During these times there were ideologies and subsequent theories relating to women’s bodies that likely encouraged and sustained censorship of the clitoris. For instance, there was Freud’s now defunct theory that clitoral stimulation was a sign of sexual immaturity and neurosis. Women were also taught not to enjoy sex; women had sex for reproductive purposes, while men had sex for pleasure.

These fallacies led to the neglect of the clitoris in research, literature and the public domain.

Although more recent research and feminist lobbying have improved the quality of information on the clitoris in current textbooks, most texts are still brief. These include minimal information, or information only on the external portion of the clitoris (the glans). This brevity has impacts on health care for women with clitoral and related pain.

This figure, published in 2014, depicts the clitoris as only the external clitoral glans and prepuce (hood).

What is the clitoris?

The clitoris lies at the junction of the labia minora (the inner lips of the vulva), just above the urethra. It is made up of four main parts: the glans, body, two crura and two bulbs. The glans is the only external part of the clitoris and is covered by a hood of skin.

The body, corpora, crura and bulbs of the clitoris are all made up of erectile tissue and converge below the glans. The body of the clitoris is generally 1-2cm wide and 2-4cm long.

Left: the clitoris from an anterior view. All four parts of the clitoris are visible in this view: the glans (external portion), the body, the bulbs and the crura. Right: the clitoris from a side view. Only one crus (plural: crura) and bulb are shown from this view. Note, the clitoris is a tri-planar organ, with each component lying in a different plane to one another.
Author provided

The crura extend laterally from the body of the clitoris and are on average around 5-9cm long. The bulbs of the clitoris are generally 3-7cm long and lie between the body, crura and the urethra.

The clitoris is highly innervated, with twice as many nerve endings as the penis, and receives a rich blood supply. This rich blood supply allows the erectile components to swell up, with the body and glans of the clitoris becoming up to three times larger during arousal – and you thought a penile erection was impressive!

The clitoris (left) and penis (right) emerge from the same cells in a zygote.
Screenshot/Huffington Post

Foetus genital and reproductive organs are differentiated at six weeks’ gestation. While the clitoris and penis arise from the same group of cells in a zygote, we now know they clearly have different forms and functions.

The penis has an obvious and well-researched role in the reproductive and urinary systems, while the function of the clitoris is usually stated as being purely for pleasure.

However, few studies have actually investigated the function of the clitoris. The close proximity of the clitoris to the urethra and vagina has led to suggestions that it plays a much larger role than sexual pleasure, such as assisting in maintaining immune health.

What we don’t know can hurt us

Censoring the clitoris in textbooks means doctors and other health-care professionals won’t be equipped to treat patients with clitoral concerns. Women are at risk of sexual dysfunction (such as lack of desire or arousal, decreased lubrication, inability to orgasm) from operations on their urinary and reproductive organs. This shows doctors need more in-depth knowledge, and we need further research into understanding the anatomy of the clitoris.

Don’t you forget about me.
Towe My/Flickr, CC BY

Because of its delicate yet complex make-up, the clitoris is prone to infections, inflammation and diseases. Some common examples are itching and soreness due to thrush infections, swelling due to bruising or inflammation, and pain of unknown origin (called clitorodynia).

Although it is not often spoken about, clitoral and vulvar pain are very common in women.

Educating patients about their condition can improve pain outcomes. Yet this may be difficult for doctors treating conditions such as clitorodynia, given they may not be receiving adequate information about the clitoris themselves.

On average, one-third of university-aged women are unable to find the clitoris on a diagram. We frequently use synonyms of females’ reproductive organs as derogatory terms (“pussy” to mean weak, “cunt” to mean an unpleasant person) and many women are often not comfortable using anatomically correct terms.

More than 65% of women say they feel uneasy using the terms vagina and vulva. Instead they use code names such as “lady parts”, even when discussing gynaecological issues with their doctors.

The ConversationGiven there is evidence to suggest our sense of body ownership can influence pain, perhaps this lack of body ownership over the clitoris helps to explain why conditions such as clitorodynia are common.

Jane Chalmers, Lecturer in Physiotherapy, Western Sydney University and Cat Jones, Artist in Residence, Body In Mind, Sansom Institute, University of South Australia

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.