Neither From Nor Towards (1992) – Cornelia Parker

I am a material configuration, the pigeons in the park are material compositions, the viruses, parasites, and heavy metals in my flesh and in pigeon flesh are materialities, as are neurochemicals, hurricane winds, E. coli, and the dust on the floor. Materiality is a rubric that tends to horizontalize the relations between humans, biota, and abiota. It draws human attention sideways, away from an ontologically ranked Great Chain of Being and toward a greater appreciation of the complex entanglements of humans and nonhumans. Here. the implicit moral imperative of Western thought -“Thou shall identify and defend what is special about Man”-loses some of its salience

Jane Bennett
Vibrant Matter