Narrative Dials

 

Narrative Dials are physical devices used in forming, constructing, and connecting speculative narratives connected to cosmological systems. Narratives that emerge from the alignment of the dials weave into existence  speculative stories of commoning and reciprocity among flora, fauna, humans, environments, ecologies, and their futures. Narrative Dials are tools to assist storytellers with establishing a line of inquiry, curiosity, or intention; to do this the Dials compile a number of potential conditions for speculation. By conjuring stories, with the guidance of the Dials, storytellers are able to weave together narratives about unique contemporaneous or historical ‘cosmologies of interaction.’ Each Dial contains a latent archive of disparate species, environments, and other factors, each ready to be entangled, intertwined, and activated with the others by the storyteller.

 

Envisioned as ‘contained cosmologies’ of possible futures, the Narrative Dials establish a prototype for finding intersectional relationships across a range of diverse subjects, topics, and scales. While the Dials are currently being developed in accordance with my own work and interests (especially my interests in medicinal landscapes and horticultural techniques-and-technologies), they are primarily imaged as a tool to be openly shared within a community of scholars and storytellers in assistance of the creation and contemplation of their own practices. The Narrative Dials are modeled after perpetual clocks and perpetual calendars and will be fabricated in wood or similar reclaimed materials. They will range in scale from 12” diameter to 18” diameter in size.