• Why rhizomes?. The "Foamy Works". Old gold/New gold. About books. Dissolution
of the animate/inanimate binary into "The greater scheme of things".
by Helen Britton

• Here we are, looking at Peter's work and thinking about rhizomes. We are a group - you, me, all those that influenced this writing about Peter's work, the other contributors to the book and the little machines that are the works themselves, as well as the book machine. We are looking, reading and thinking, and now thinking a little about the idea of the rhizome, not because Peter's works look like some kind of plant, but because when we utilise this rhizomatic model as a thinking method it gives us a map that is far more consistent with some forms of artistic practice, the idea of practice in general and with Peter's practice in particular. If we start by saying a rhizome is constructed in such a way that any point can connect, must be able to connect with any other point/thing, we end up with a map/model that does not have plotted points and fixed orders, is non linear with regard to time or direction and it has many possible entries and exits. Importantly it is also not a tracing.

• This map/model is good to think about when we look at the "Foamy Works" . . Rhizomatic in structure, these works are composed of and rely on hundreds of tiny points of connection over a surface of fragments of metal solidified in motion, metal that relies also on heat and speed of action to function, as in the process of casting. These "Foamy Works" in their fragility have the quality of an apparition, without tranquil certainties, but also not unfriendly. They are only just solid and there is a sense that they might flow or even float into the next form. Their indistinctness implies possibilities: hearts, bottoms, potatoes, bodies: they are simultaneously many things in a state of suspended formation. With no strong principle unity these foamy works appear to be solidified in the process of becoming. And the result is not a linear family tree, but a group of interconnected friends.

• The history of gold is also not based on linearity. Gold is a rhizomatic material. Salvaged, stolen, scraped from the earth; melted refined mixed and reworked - and in this process the questions surface: Where have these particles been? What have they been part of? Histories merge and vanish in this mixture constantly salvaged, melted, refined, mixed, remelted and formed. As Goldsmiths we are always careful to sweep up all the fillings that can be construed for future purposes as a string of binaries - Old gold/ New gold, Old world /New world, Cultural history / Geological history.

• And now we have this book with all its contributions, formations and distributions along unconventional paths of knowledge. A dense node of conventional fragments - pictures, writing, paper, ink. This book does not describe something, but becomes with its residue of years of work a new rhizomatic formation, an accumulation - all the more comprehensive for being fragmented - "there is no difference between what a book talks about and how it is made". . This book does not frame a consistency, it is a group of dynamic parts massed together that spins off in a new direction. So it is better not to ask the question "What is it and how can I understand it?", but "How does it function and connect in the world?"

• What are we making with all these nodes and meeting points of things and thoughts? Hopefully they also remind us that we are not in control of objects. , that we are part of an interactive field of play - the shoe allowing us walk easily over stony ground, the chair asking us to sit in a particular way. What do we manufacture with these crazy little machines that we make and wear and look through and read. In the way we hold this book, eyes travelling along the lines of text or over the pictures, we are not separate animate and inanimate matter, animate in control. With our eternal curiosity we are bound to respond in action as well as thought to the questions objects ask us. We make our work, we pin on the broach or pick up the little machine, we look through the hole in the wall because we cannot resist its question and we walk with it into the world when it asks us to.