Creating assemblages as a love language
One of my favorite ways of expressing and receiving love is through creating assemblages—sharing a playlist of carefully chosen songs, an are.na board that appeals to a person’s specific interests, a collection of seemingly arbitrary objects that tell a story about a relationship’s history…
Through this exchange, a lot is conveyed through the gift giver—the intention behind the selection of items, the story they are trying to tell through their interwoven relationships, their understanding and perspective of the recipient. The recipient also now owns something special, something that'll take on additional significance through the context of their relationship.
In skinonskinonskin (1999), artists Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn sent websites as love letters to each other. Harvey recounts, “as i moved my mouse, it mirrored the motion of my pointer. it breathed. i fell in love. he fell in love. i sent him a webpage back. we did this back and forth for weeks…” Code is typically seen as impassive, but this anthology of Flash, audio, text, and images captures deeply nuanced intimacy.
Even without a specific recipient in mind, assemblage making can still be an expression of love and care towards the world itself. Both in Deleuzian and colloquial terms, assemblages offer a deliberate way of perceiving the world. As examples, gardening takes on the role of remixing ecology, and digital gardening becomes a means of nurturing ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
Acting as scavenger, curator, and remixer, I want to make use of what’s given to me and curate worlds to help make sense of it all. Amidst the chaos of life, assemblages are created through spontaneous occurrences and intentional interactions. Because ultimately, this process is a way of finding opportunities and meaning in an ever-changing environment.