Linda Knight & Alys Longley, Chaosgraph: scales of infection (2020-2022). Textile, video, movement, dimensions variable. Photo Linda Knight.
Chaosgraph, Scales of Infection
This project maps scales of infection of COVID-19 through statistical data. Chaosgraph, Scales of Infection is a cross-border material and corporeal exchange that interrogates the multiple effects and spread of a complex virus through the charts and ranking statistics of popular data. A chaosgraph is purposefully difficult to read and does not distill information, subverting the easily-digestible intentions and design of the info-graph.
In Chaosgraph, Scales of Infection a series of acts and gestures perform the datalogical world during COVID-19. A length of silk is altered. Sewn onto the fabric are the landmasses defined as countries, that have been ranked 1-10 in terms of their numbers of COVID cases at a particular moment. The project offers a mapping of the ways borders between countries are reinscribed and how we have become isolated and separated through social and physical shutdowns.
Linda Knight specialises in critical and speculative arts practice. Linda is also a methodologist, she devised ‘Inefficient Mapping’ as a methodological protocol for projects informed by ‘post-‘ theories. In her role as Associate professor at RMIT University, Australia Linda creates transdisciplinary projects across early childhood, creative practice, and digital media. Linda is Director of the Mapping Future Imaginaries research network, an international group of artists, academics, designers, and industry specialists exploring ideas about our future lives and the world.
As an interdisciplinary artist, and through methods of choreographic experimentation, Alys Longley investigates dance as professional performance, creative expression, community practice and education. Alys is in the Dance Studies Program at the University of Auckland, NZ. Formerly a theatre director and creative writer, Alys explores wellness of young people, healthy societies, creative arts in education and environmental issues. Alys specialises in practice-led research, interdisciplinary projects, ethnography, somatic practices, ecology, and inclusive dance education.