It looks somewhere between ridiculous and ludicrous – this Virome Caravan “thing”.
Yet, since this “Virome Caravan Thing” is done in full display of all sorts of vulnerabilities and intimacies –
perhaps Virome Caravan helps to bring questions of aesthetics, to do with power, that we might have grown to take for granted?
Power aesthetics that are revealed to bite fanged full and utterly bare through covid oriented times?
ViromeCaravan got made for under £200, and while testing, and it broke twice. (I’m not much of a DIY person really.)
The current ViromeCaravan moves from one place to another like a virus since directions aren’t enforced but afforded.
Motion is done through a combination of pulling – either through skateboarding or by walking.
(Afforded motion – as in to be un-opposed, moving-on and get something done without enforcement.)
Viral infections move from one host to another when cells afford viruses an entry. In a similar way, the ViromeCaravan moves between places when and where it is allowed. Moving into to such and such place, this or that environment, comes with ease – without enforcement.
Therefore its hard to tell, from one day to another, where the ViromeCaravan will go to, and when.
As a creature, the ViromeCaravan has a few peculiar inter-related dynamics.
Traveling creates frictions, while frictions offer possible range of dynamics and movements. Through these symbiotic connections between traveling, movements, and their cross negotiation dynamics –
short reflective texts in forms of diagrams (PersonalBows) are created, collected, and shared.
PersonalBows are written with chalk on the caravan’s body. This way other elements (eg rain, winds, walls, trees and such like) get to leave their frictive marks with the texts. Rains may erase texts, winds smudge letters and trees that host birds – offer poo marks.
All these come together as elements negotiating each other by need rather than force.
This way, the ViromeCaravan operates as a port through which various kinds reflective frictions are made, shared and later, may come spewed as a new specific language of aesthetics.