In June of this year, following a lengthy yet productive editorial process, I published my first piece of academic writing in Soapbox Journal Issue 4: At the Interface.This essay was later presented at the 15th Deleuze & Guattari Studies Conference & Camp in July 2023.
Abstract:
In the video work Sirenomelia from 2018, artist-filmmaker Emilija Škarnulytė transforms into a mermaid by wearing a prosthetic fishtail and goes swimming in the tunnels of Olavsvern, a decommissioned Royal Norwegian Navy nuclear submarine base located in the Arctic region. The video’s narrative is set in a future after civilisational collapse due to human-induced ecological disaster, with the mermaid featuring as an evolved human who adapted to new environmental conditions. In this essay I focus on the artist’s embodied practice of becoming-mermaid, proposing the term materialist mythology as a way to think about how embodied practices of engaging with the world can lead to meaningful, alternative encounters between humans, non-humans, and the more-than-human world. Zooming out from the human-tail configuration, I consider the militarised landscape, aquatic organisms, and the sea in which the mermaid swims as agentic components with transformative potential for her existence.
This issue brought together diverse academic, artistic, and experimental explorations of the interface. With contributions by Devith Griffiths, Clara Pasteau, Ron Ma, Javier Bertossi, Danae Tapia & Andrés Tapia, Jason J. Wallin, Alexandre Guern, Robert Barrett, and Maša Seničič.
You can download a PDF version or buy a print issue here.
Manuela Zammit 