Imákȟaheye (Method)

The Imákȟaheye (Method) graphics are designed as guides to developing and maintaining future relationships to nonhumans. The graphics synthesized what I learned from the interviews about making and maintaining relationships with nonhuman beings in a Good Way as well as more holistic approaches to the creation of new things. All six diagrams represent the same concept of cosmologyscape. It consists of six graphics.

·      Kapémni (twisting vortex)

·      Thiyúktaŋ (dome framework)

·      Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ (stars, stones)

·      Okáwiŋǧaŋpi (circling)

·      Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ, thiyúktaŋ (stars, stones, dome framework)     

·      Oáli (ladder)

These graphics help pose future questions: When we make new knowledge, who are our collaborators? Do we communicate with and through our technologies to the spirit world? Does all of time and space conspire for our spirits to see a star or meet a stone? When are we listening to nonhumans?

I imagine the moments and gestures, the protocols and the Culturally-Grounded Methodologies described by interviewees to be the stars and stones (the plus and the zigzag-square shapes, respectively) in the following diagrams.

Kapémni (twisting vortex)

Description

The plus sign in the centre represents the artist creating art (Figure 41). The lightning strike shapes represent the power of transformation. The plus sign on the left is a star representing the cosmos, and the unseen knowledge of the spirit. The cross on the right is an arrangement of two symbols for mountains representing the seen, physical realm. The cones represent the Kapémni, or the Lakȟóta concept of a twisting vortex. The concentric diamonds around the middle star represent thought.

Holistic view

The Kapémni connects the macro and the micro, how we maintain the relationships within the physical world and beyond. It represents the aspect of the Lakȟóta cosmologyscape where the timescale of the stars and the timescale of our volcanic sacred sites are mirrored, stars and stones in an ancient and future dance.

Meaning

Kapémni illustrates conceptual frameworks developed in conversation with my Lakȟóta community members, each a different perspective on the process of making, whether an artwork or an AI. Each decision made transforms energy from one world to the next. Most importantly, through Lakȟóta ontology I consider much of nonhuman ontologies and epistemologies outside of human knowability altogether.

Thiyúktaŋ (dome framework)

Figure 44: Kite and Bobby Joe Smith III, Thiyúktaŋ (dome framework), 2021.

Description

Thiyúktaŋ (dome framework) (Figure 44), is a sphere with a plus sign in the centre and a star and stone on each side. The plus sign in the middle represents the artist creating art. The lightning strike shapes represent the power of transformation. The plus sign on the left is a star representing the cosmos, and the unseen knowledge of the spirit. The cross on the right is an arrangement of two symbols for mountains representing the seen, physical realm.

Holistic

The Thiyúktaŋ (dome framework) holds earth and stars, the knowable and the unknowable, the physical and the metaphysical; an act of creation floats in the center. The seven lines come from our sweat lodges, where we honor the four directions, the heavens, the earth, and oneself. In the sweat lodge, the dome is visible above the earth and an invisible dome is felt below the earth. The points of intersection on the willow branches align with constellations of stars. The same constellations which guide our movements on the earth to move from ceremonial site to ceremonial site.

Meaning

This design represents the points of intersection between the physical and spirit world when an artist creates art. This design represents the interconnectedness of decisions and ethics with each part of the artmaking process.

Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ (stars, stones)

Figure 45: Kite and Bobby Joe Smith III, Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ (stars, stones), 2021.

Description

In Figure 45, Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ (stars, stones), we see a simplified version of the Okáwiŋǧaŋpi (circling) (Figure 46). On one end the star, on the other a stone, and in the center a human creation: an artwork, a computer, a speech, a song, a machine-learning system, a painting, a beaded medallion, a quillwork pouch.

Holistic

Art is made in collaboration with humans and nonhumans in the physical and spirit world. Artworks encompass both realms.

Meaning

The act of creation is the channeling through the human body of the physical and nonphysical world, human and nonhuman communication, the knowable and unknowable.

Okáwiŋǧaŋpi (circling)

Figure 47: Kite and Bobby Joe Smith III, Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ, thiyúktaŋ (stars, stones, dome framework), 2021.

Description

Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ, thiyúktaŋ (stars, stones, dome framework) (Figure 47) is a more detailed version of Thiyúktaŋ (dome framework) (Figure 44). Each plus (star) and cross (stone) is networked together in dome frameworks, rippling out from the cross and diamonds (artwork) in the center.

Holistic

Acts of protocol affect both the physical and spirit world. Each act of protocol in the physical world is reflected in the spirit world.

Meaning

In this figure, the nodes of protocol, decision-making, and methodology are seen as interactions with human and nonhuman, seen and unseen beings, affecting each other (and others) in infinite ways. The offering of tobacco may seem irrelevant to building a computer, but the chain reaction of reciprocity reverberates into an unseen world. Feasting one’s tools in the physical world has deeper and farther-reaching effects than are knowable to the human experience.

Oáli (ladder)

Figure 46: Kite and Bobby Joe Smith III, Okáwiŋǧaŋpi (circling), 2021.

Description

Each of the diamonds with pluses (stars) are nodes in this sphere Okáwiŋǧaŋpi (circling) (Figure 46), representing points of protocol such as: listening, hearing, exchange, reciprocity, acknowledgement, gifting, feasting, and honoring the knowable and the unknowable. The cross in the center is the unfolding artwork.

Holistic

Each point of protocol that the artist participates in has effects on the artwork. Anishinaabe artist Scott Benesiinaabandan, tells me, “I consider dreaming the most important technology we have because it weaves together one day to another day...one idea to another idea, to another idea.”[1] Dreaming is a protocol that can connect the physical and spiritual world in the process of creating an artwork.

Meaning

Listening to the unknowable is the listening to nonhumans, a listening that requires understanding that nonhumans are beings, listening to how they make their knowledge, and reflecting those frameworks in how we, as humans, create something new. Each act of protocol honors and communicates with nonhumans.

Wičháȟpi, íŋyaŋ, thiyúktaŋ (stars, stones, dome framework)

Figure 48: Kite and Bobby Joe Smith III, Oáli (ladder), 2021.

Description

The design of Oáli (ladder) (Figure 48) is five stacked Kapémni (Twisting Vortex) (Figure 43). Between each Kapémni is a poem: “listening to nonhuman | on earth and the spirit world | knowing how nonhumans | create new knowledge.”

Holistic

The Indigenous methodologies I learned about in the interviews and synthesized into graphics do not answer, but instead embrace, the process of continually asking the question, “Where do our creations come from, if we as humans are conduits, mere channels by which spirit moves through us to act on this earthly plane?”

Meaning

The Oáli (ladder) (Figure 48), reads: “listening to nonhuman | on earth and the spirit world | knowing how nonhumans | create new knowledge.” I could not reconcile a hierarchy of ontology, epistemology, methodology, and cosmology. Instead, I chose to represent ontology as “listening to nonhumans,” cosmology as “on earth and the spirit world,” epistemology as “knowing how nonhumans,” methodology as “create new knowledge.” These Kapémnis (twisting vortexes) are connecting star to stone, with the artwork in the center. They should be imagined as the same Kapémni enacting the creation at once.

[1] See Appendix 8.4.1.