Pollination Proposition, 5:38, 2009

Pollination Proposition proposes an incongruous solution to declining bee populations – a beautiful yet abject human-mechanization of the pollination process. The productive yet eloquent transgression of species-boundaries between orchid and bee during pollination is mimicked in this performance to explore a potential dissolution of hierarchies between human, plant and machine. The Pinocchio figure transgresses the boundaries between human, plant and insect by repeatedly penetrating the orchid flower’s canal with an elongated nose; a sexually referential gesture enacted by an androgynous body that is digitally manipulated to appear mechanical and repetitious.

In light of recent reports of declining bee populations and manual human cross-pollination activities, this suggestive proposition highlights human intervention in the pollination process to emphasize the absurdity of such a gesture, while simultaneously acknowledging the complex and affective system of relations between heterogeneous entities. Pollination Proposition acknowledges an entangled system of relations, but more importantly, seeks to recognize intersections of difference as productive sites of exchange – change does not only occur between like species, but among entities of different orders, including between both organic and machinic organisms. Pollination Proposition blurs the distinctions between species delineations, natural and unnatural, gender roles, and performance and digitization to emphasize the potential for relations and affect to promote positive understandings of difference.