A slight bend of the forearm

Abstract

The contested practice of dowsing is a technique for searching for underground water, minerals, ley lines, or anything invisible, by observing the motion of a pointer. Throughout this process of artistic research, I have developed my own relationship to the method of dowsing. This paper illustrates a landscape which has become through and with this method. The movement of dowsing rods is simultaneously an expression of your own knowing, as it is an indicator which you can analyse for new results. Information can be seen as multidirectional as it seemingly flows both from and into the body. As such it breaks down the linearity of knowledge production and reception, rather suggesting a form of fluidity. Throughout this paper, I will question what it might mean to know or believe, given the challenges which face us, in an age of fundamental change. Looking in detail, at the way in which dowsing is understood in popular culture, and layering with my own experiences, this thesis seeks to unpack the nature of a binary in which some knowledges are centralised in order to establish a realm where others might only be considered as 'alternative'. I will propose that the nature of this binary is both gendered and ableist, and that the exclusion of perceptual and bodily based knowledges, has a significance in how we might approach our ecological condition. After presenting this analysis on the state of knowledge and truth, with reference to the post-structuralist turn and the so-called 'post-truth' era, this thesis will explore how my own investigation in contemporary performance responded to the complexities of truth and fact in the age of climate crisis.