Weavers in the Dark (Knitting a Cosmic Symphony): Notes on the Arachnid Work of Tomás Saraceno

Abstract

This article examines the work with arachnids of artist Tomás Saraceno, regarding its affinity with the philosophical ideas emerged in the context of the non-human turn in contemporary thought. Beginning with «Galaxies Forming along Filaments», followed by «Hybrid Webs», «Cosmic Jives», and «Arachnid Orchestra», three phases of an inductive process–reticular, hybrid, and bioacoustics–are proposed, whereby the artist has progressively collapsed the hierarchy between the knowledges that merge in this artistic creation. Through the analysis of the progressive mode in which these phases call for the reconsideration of notions such as agency, poiesis, and technique in art, this article proposes that what is at issue in this process is a movement toward an ethic of objects without hierarchy. This work with spiders, then, sketches an axiology that inverts the formal universe so as to liberate artistic creation from human and visual predominance through symbiotic work.