The Eye in I

In Marcia J. Bates’s article “Fundamental Forms of Information” she lays out the argument for conceptualizing information and the organization of matter and energy (2006). If information is organized matter and energy, then the embodied self is nothing short of informational (Bates, 2018). The embodied self creates information, interacts with information, is a source of information, an information receptor and interpreter. Or as Marlin-Bennet writes, “In short, we are embodied information and we are knowing bodies. We serve as sources and recipients of information” (2013, p.621). For this artwork, I explore embodiment and information by creating a triptych multi-fiber media quilt. “The Eye in I” contains three parts of the embodied self: the mind/self/soul, body, and the social. While these things can be seen as separate, as is true for a triptych they say more together and in relation to each other. While Cartesian dualism likes to pretend that the mind and body separate, this piece directly counters that highlighting the interconnectedness that embodiment provides and contributes to the feminist dismantling of the mind-body separation.