sal DE SAL (CIRCULATION #7)

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BACKGROUND: The CIRCULATIONS series of new performance installations were developed for regional cluster events of 'Fluid States: Performances of Unknowing', the Performance Studies international globally distributed 2015 program. Employing salt as material and performative medium, CIRCULATIONS explores the dynamics of local specificities and global connectedness of cultural and ecological systems. Salt is a material in cyclical movement and transformation - through bodies of water, through the bodies of living organisms, through land; a material that elicits awareness of the porosity of entities and raises questions of equilibrium and change. 'sal de sal' (CIRCULATION #7) is a two-part work activating two gallery sites through which the human body can register regional salination issues, one employing salt, one de-salinated water. CONTRIBUTION: 'sal DE SAL' creates a pool of water in a gallery, referring to the regional Wonthaggi desalination plant built to meet metropolitan Melbourne's water demands. The water surface reflects video of a man trying to float whilst balancing salt on his chest, providing audiences with a meditation problematising human tendencies to seek technological solutions to sustain increasing human demands for natural resources. This work contributes a post-humanist example of a performative creative practice investigation into human-ecological relations. Our attention is directed to the range of human negotiations with natural systems and resources - commonly containing and capitalising - whilst circulations of salt continue to exceed control. SIGNIFICANCE: The work was encountered by estimated 2000 gallery attendees, and reviewed by PSi President Maaike Bleeker in the Performing Mobilities catalogue.). The CIRCULATIONS series was selected for showing in 2015 in Bahamas, Rarotonga, Tohoku, Melbourne and Manila, and featured in Mick Douglas & Sam Trubridge, 'Concurrent Practices', Performance Research, vol 21: issue 2, 2016, pp96-107.