Dr Jane Robb
James Hutton, wrote in his 1788 paper ‘Theory of the Earth’ that “…we find no vestige of a beginning, – no prospect of an end.” Hutton’s work is based on observations of Scottish geology, providing evidence for what we now know as ‘Deep Time.’ putting in place the groundwork for our modern understanding of Earth’s processes including the process through which rocks – the Earth’s crust – are continuously transformed. Continual transformation – folding – of matter, thought and worlds are also what Giles Deleuze later wrote of, inspired, maybe unwittingly, by the Earth itself.
My submission to The Fold is therefore threefold. First, I take the world as something that bends and curves, through the exploration of the idea of a wave of light, a line that bends. In Line, I sought to further explore the concept of The Fold through a mechanism (a game poem). Next, in No vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end, I take a visual approach to The Fold, combining visual records of Earth’s folding in the rocks and living materials with my own body, echoing the continual cycling of matter. Finally, in Joined-up geoscience project, I explore the continual folding of thought through metaphor, via a living web archive which I developed in conversation with The Fold, to seek connection, sites of inflection, returning-to and reuse within my life-as-art.
