Experimenting with iron reveals something about how to escape the control of matter – and of black bodies.

When captured, rigid matter can escape by becoming dust.

Transformation is a dodge.

*

INTERRUPTED ELECTROLYSIS

[the rusty object shares with the galvanized one its memory and the ability to fall into ruin, to transform itself]

In electrolysis, it is possible to transfer rust from one object to another by connecting them to an energy source in an aqueous medium. Generally, this process is used to remove rust from one of the objects; however, I have activated electrolysis as a method of sharing, that is, the rusty object shares with the galvanized one its rust. When the latter has part of its zinc barrier broken and it becomes possible to see the original color of the iron, the process is interrupted.

*

OXIDATION : RESPIRATION

ELECTRON : NEGATIVE CHARGE

RUST : MEMORY

RUIN : FREEDOM

ELECTROLYSIS : MEMORY SHARING

GALVANIZING : WHITENING

*

Black bodies experience whitening as the negativation of their culture; iron experiences a similar thing when it is submitted to an industrial process called galvanization, which I understand as the whitening of this matter. This process consists of a zinc bath that coats it and prevents its contact with the air, thus hindering the oxidation and keeping it gray. This is one of the ways in which industry paralyzes the energy of this matter to transform it into profit. 

Profit is the guarantee of the state’s permanence. When the zinc layer is broken, iron oxidizes and loses electrons, that is, matter respires and loses its negative charge. I think that every body forcibly removed from its origins carries within itself a ruin-desire; in the case of iron, rust is the pronunciation of this desire, as through it, it becomes possible to return to the earth, to become dust again. Facing my body I have imagined ways to reactivate the existence prior to annihilation, to allow the imagination to orbit and inhabit this possibility, and iron has been the matter that helps me imagine these paths. 

*

Industry, capitalism, colonialism are the expression of the harvesting of the natural force of matter in order to transform it into labor force. The flow of movement is interrupted to create a static form that generates profit. Iron is a matter that assumes a form, however it is always prone to undoing it. It is a matter that inhabits ruin. Whenever iron respires, it crumbles.