Mike Calway-Fagen: Tool Use for Passion Project

March 08 - May 12,2024

From CO-OPt Research + Projects: "CO-OPt Research + Projects presents works by Indianapolis-based artist, writer, and curator Mike Calway-Fagen, with a reception on Friday, March 8, 2024: Tool Use for Passion Project. "Passion Projects" are less serious, diminished in the eyes of the professional class by  their lack of capital production and contribution to the GDP.  Passion is sensual, even  animalistic, not of the mind but of the body. Historically it, and words like it, were, and still  are, used to identify less human, savage, or animalistic attributes, those that could be  assigned to whatever race, class, sexual preference the hegemony needed to devalue to  maintain their perceived supremacy/primacy. “Tool Use” is a phrase that has been used to distinguish more capable non-human  animals from those less capable. More recently, this understanding has expanded and  more behaviors are considered to be tool utilization. In turn, more creatures have been  elevated to an evolutionary plane more near to humans. But many non-human animals’  capabilities are far more sophisticated than those of humans. For instance, the memory  of crows, the communication capabilities of whales, the sentient limbs of the octopus, or  the vast multi-tasking capacity of pigeons. But what constitutes a tool? What about language? It’s a tool but also more. Words are magic instruments for bringing  the world under human capture. A thought can’t be thought in the absence of language.  Try it. What’s more, every word you can pair with a signifier is only able to be paired based on all  the other words you know. A juice box is so because you understand “juice” and “box.”  “Box” is known due to your understanding of “rectangle,” which you know because it’s  neither a square or a circle and so on and so forth. All words are laced up with all other  words. And where does the tool end and the user begin? If the world is an endless network of  causal systems then are tools and users reciprocal and continuous? Wouldn’t that make everything a tool, used by everything else, and driven by a human  animal and non-human animal passion? That is the project. Black bean, black bird, black heart, the black crows, black metal Aye Aye "

Reception: March 08, 2024 | 5-8 pm

CO-OPt Research + Projects 4204 Boston Ave
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