Originally from Australia, Myvanwy Gibson began her artistic career in 2000 as a self taught real-time video artist. She subsequently completed two consecutive Masters in Fine Art - firstly in Painting and secondly in Visual Culture and Curatorial Practices. She has exhibited and presented in London, Milan, New York, Rome, Switzerland, Venice and Vienna; and her research papers have been published in Academia Letters magazine and in the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics New York and Vienna proceedings. She was accepted to carry out this research project whilst completing a Master of Research in Arts and Humanities at The RCA in 2022-23.

See all academic writing here: https://rca.academia.edu/Myvan...

My research is a theoretical and philosophical investigation into the nature of being, of becoming/transforming, of language, translation and technology - and above all, of what we might learn if attuned to the natural world. It could be contextualised within the philosophical and socio/political, with a specific interest in how humankind can evolve consciously so as to address the current world challenges around the environment, health and well-being, poverty and technology.

I use creative as well critical writing to gain a closer connection with the natural world. Through the practice of writing poetry I am permitted to glimpse, sense the continuously expanding limits of nature. At times in the practice of writing it seems, paradoxically, that I have knowledge of things I don't know anything about. This collaborating with the unknown has become a methodology in my practice, and I use it as an active form of research. My writings then develop into many different artforms - sonic poems, installations, spoken word performances and instructions for my practice.

The current subject of my research came out of my critical writing, and is an idea that developed via practice-based research in painting, sound and technology. It is the idea of the 'Anthropononcentric' and is based on the concept of the unity of opposites - a philosophical medium for change. It aims to decentre the human as the most important factor in the universe asking: 'What if we were able to enhance our relatedness to nature* via the contemporary technologies we have created?'

I apply this theory to my practice by utilising a strict methodology of nature-making not man-making, using technology as a means of translation so that the intelligence of nature can present itself.

'The Language of Birds' is one of the many projects I have developed using an Anthropononcentric art practice. In this case the natural element presenting itself via my collaboration with technology is the sound of birds. The title of the project nods to the ancient mythological/occult philosophy and belief that birds use a language that communicates only with those initiated. During the project the aim of the practice was to channel a material form from the sound of birds, these forms then to be presented as talismans - the power and magic of nature inherent within them. The works created are titled Syrinx Sculptures, as the syrinx is the larynx of a bird.

During the process of the research I became interested in the philosophy of disidentification and so the project developed into a specifically focussed form of Anthropononcentric art. Hoping to provoke new ways of thinking about our existing taxonomy of sexual identity and as a model of critical disidentification, I decided to work solely with the sound of gynandromorphic birds to create the material forms - a gynandromorph** being a creature who presents as both male and female.

The final work for the project evolved to become a performance ('Sound as Oracle') in which the Syrinx Sculptures create a space from which a reading of poetry takes place. The performance is posed as a ritual, an initiation - not only of itself, but also for the artist and audience.

*I want to emphasise that I, as a human, have limited capacity to know what nature is. However, when I use the word nature I am pointing to all the known phenomena of the physical and the non-physical world, but also to the unknown intelligence of nature we are yet to discover.

**Differing from hermaphrodites who have both reproductive organs but present as only one sex.

See full thesis here: https://www.academia.edu/10521...