- Spent most of Sunday writing and rewriting what amounts to just over 100 words. It was time to add the lamella page to my portfolio website. Continuing with the metaphor of human reproduction, which is where the lamella project springs from, maybe this is the first ultrasound moment. Can that be when the human animal is forced to surrender to language? Partially? It is then, along with a blood test or two, that the medical apparatus readies itself to declare viable human in production. It is usually too early to declare gender at that point.
- Over the course of the day, and between scribbling and editing, I sent a link with the words to a few people and asked for their response. Various responses informed several rewrites which have led to where it is this morning:
- Am I ready to mention it more widely yet? I am not sure… I’m sure the time will come soon. I have been wanting to get the lamella site to a certain stage of development before doing that.
- Academic: there was a comment about some academic strands interrupting the lamella site. I initially thought, yes, perhaps I need to remove those references and bring them over here to the WordPress site where theoretical notes are being made, queried, found. However, I was reminded when reading a little later, that one of my key concerns is about overcoming the dualisms we are all so beholden to – i.e. research/practice or practice/research. So I have held back from moving anything off. In fact, I think I need to bring more of the poetics and imagery over here to keep fighting the tyranny of the —/—.
- The other thing is the name – How to make a lamella. It was suggested this sounds too workshoppy and this isn’t a workshop (or though it could be). I guess perfunctory could be a good description. Lamella contemplations, Lamella thoughts, something like Lamella Poetics were suggested as alternatives. There are two things to consider – I think there is some validity in the comment, but I do not have a suitable alternative just yet. However, the title How to make a lamella may stay as a subtitle if I do come up with something else, as I imagine it being the title of R. Zabriskie’s pamphlet on why our machine-companions need a ‘lamella’. It’s a completely made-up conceit. You can’t ‘make a Lacanian lamella’! So something in the sentence structure is awry, which is what I like about it. But I need to think how I include it. I may make a pamphlet – physically make it – and if/when I make a book for the overriding project, I should include it in the book as an insert. I was thinking about drawing from the design Make Do and Mend Design – but maybe too far removed – however, I like the phrase The Ministry of Information, given what information means to us nowadays.
- Finally, people felt the need to look up the word lamella, as I do not explain it. I was asked if I would make it clear what my understanding of lamella is. I am SOOOOOOOOO loath to do this. But it’s not the first time. It risks turning the whole project into an illustration, which would deem it a complete failure, philosophically speaking. However, the fact people looked up ‘lamella’ and sent me images of what they found prompted me to create this GIF which I have added to the site and blended with other images (I will add some more images to it and wish to goodness I could get my head round some Processing to make it generate randomly!).What is super interesting is that now, when you search for lamella, an image of mine pops up in the Google search results.
See more at:
British Library (no date) Make Do and Mend. Available at: https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106365.html (Accessed: 20 March 2023).