MARK 
DORF

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kin 
2018



Thus, from this shared matter, from exchange and cohabitation,
there is no proposition of most exalted object or subject,
for the perspective of matter in its many combinations leads.
There is grandeur in this view of emergence,
with its infinite powers,
having been breathed into all forms;
and that, whilst space has gone churning on without repeat,
abiding by no predictable pattern,
from so complex a spectrum,
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
have been,
and are becoming,
kin.
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death,
the most exalted object we are capable of conceiving,
namely the production of the higher animals, directly follows.
There is grandeur in this view of life,
with its several powers,
having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one;
and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on
according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning,
endless forms moot beautiful and most wonderful
have been,
and are being,
evolved.
kin is an artist book published by Silent Face Projects that explores the human perspective, what it would mean to be able to move outside of this perspective, and the paradoxes that are contained in this proposed point of view. The title opens with the final paragraph from Darwin’s On the Origin of Species along with a reworking of the same text by the artist that embodies a less humanist angle: an angle that that embraces co-emergence and, in the words of Donna Haraway, making kin with our surroundings rather than embracing the hierarchical “war of nature”. In crafting this “update” to On the Origin of Species, the new text still falls short of its voiced intentions, as it ultimately reflects and reveals the inescapable human lens from which it has been written.

Published: September 2018
Publisher: Silent Face Projects
Size: 8.5″x5.75″, 8 pages
Binding: Hard Cover, Cardboard Book
Edition: 100
ISBN: 978-1-7326870-0-4
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