Attentiveness as a Sensate~Heuristic Inquiry : A Spatial Practice.

I think the distinction we have been developing allows attentiveness to become much more than a general artistic virtue. In Moreton's practice, it can be understood as a sensate mode of inquiry: a way of knowing that occurs through bodily exposure to materials, spaces, atmospheres, images, histories and other bodies.

Attentiveness as Sensate Inquiry

For Moreton, attentiveness is sensate because the practice does not locate knowledge exclusively within conceptual reflection or detached observation. Knowing emerges through the body's participation in situations: through looking, touching, moving, listening, inhabiting, making and responding to the resistances and affordances encountered within particular spatial and material conditions. Attentiveness is therefore not simply a concentration upon something already constituted as an object of knowledge. It is an openness to the ways in which an encounter may alter what is available to perception and thought.

This distinction is important to Moreton's understanding of site-based practice. A site is never encountered as a neutral geographical container within which artistic activity subsequently takes place. It is already constituted through material, architectural, historical, atmospheric and bodily relations. To attend to a site is consequently to become situated within these relations. The body encounters temperature, scale, texture, sound, light, weight, movement, spatial enclosure and exposure alongside memory, association, reading and imagination. These registers cannot always be separated into discrete categories because their significance emerges through their correspondence. The sensate is therefore not simply sensory experience understood as a collection of perceptions; it is the condition through which heterogeneous registers begin to matter to one another.

This makes attentiveness inherently relational. Moreton's practice does not treat the perceiving body as an autonomous observer standing outside a world of objects. The body is itself one participant within an encounter that includes materials, architectures, apparatuses, images, texts, weather, light and other bodies. Attending to clay, for example, means becoming responsive to its plasticity, weight, moisture, resistance, drying, fracture and transformation. These are not merely technical characteristics of a material. They become active conditions within which decisions, gestures and propositions are continually revised. The material consequently participates in the production of what can be known. Making becomes a form of inquiry because the act of making changes the situation from which further understanding can emerge.

Here heuristic inquiry and sensate attentiveness become inseparable. Heuristic describes an inquiry whose direction is discovered through the encounter rather than fully determined in advance; sensate describes the bodily and material register through which that discovery occurs. Moreton's practice therefore does not proceed from a conceptual proposition towards its material realisation in a straightforward movement. It moves through an iterative field of encounter, response, resistance and adjustment. The process might be understood as:

encounter ~ attention ~ making ~ resistance ~ adjustment ~ correspondence ~ further encounter

Wayfaring attentiveness names the movement through this field. To wayfare is not simply to travel from one predetermined point to another. It is to make one's way through an environment whose conditions continually participate in the journey. Moreton's movement between site, reading, image, drawing, collage, architecture and clay operates in this manner. A text can redirect a reading of a site; a site can alter a material proposition; material resistance can produce a new drawing; a photographic image can return through a ceramic form; a ceramic body can subsequently alter the perception of the architectural environment in which it is encountered. The pathway is consequently produced through movement itself.

This also clarifies why Moreton's research collages are important within the practice. Their fragments, annotations, images, diagrams and architectural references do not merely document thought that has already taken place. They provide a spatial condition in which thought can remain in movement. Reading becomes a sensate activity because the eye moves across fragments, pauses, returns, makes connections and encounters interruptions. The collage becomes a heuristic apparatus through which relations can be tested without requiring immediate resolution. Thought is spatialised through the body of the reader.

The same principle extends into Moreton's photographic assemblages and ceramic bodies. In each case, heterogeneous registers are brought into proximity, but proximity alone is insufficient. The more significant movement is from gathering towards correspondence. Bodies begin to affect the conditions of other bodies. This is where the notion of timbre becomes useful. Timbre can be understood as the sensate quality of a relational accord: not a property possessed by an individual body, but something produced through the way bodies, materials, spaces and forces enter into correspondence.

The analogy of the flute makes this distinction particularly clear. The timbre of a flute is not contained within the instrument, nor is it produced by the breathing body alone. It emerges through the encounter between breath, body, instrument, air, material resistance, resonance and architectural environment. The player listens to the sound produced and adjusts the body again; the instrument responds to the altered breath; the room participates in the resonance. The bodies do not simply gather. They wayfare together.

Moreton's sensate attentiveness operates similarly. It seeks neither to master the material nor to dissolve the distinction between bodies. Instead, it develops an attentiveness through which bodies can enter into reciprocal adjustment. This is why correspondence is more useful than simple relation. Relation can describe a connection between things; correspondence suggests an ongoing process in which the participants are changed by their encounter.

Within this framework, atmosphere is not an additional layer placed around the work. It emerges through the sensate correspondence of bodies, materials and spatial registers. Topophilia may describe the attachment through which a place begins to matter; interiority describes the gathering and folding of relations; timbre describes their sensate resonance; atmosphere describes the wider field that becomes perceptible through this resonance. These are not separate stages but overlapping conditions within an ecological spatial practice.

The withdrawn ceramic makes this particularly evident. Firing withdraws clay from its provisional state and gives the material a new persistence, but it does not terminate the relations through which the work can continue to matter. Its apertures, cavities, surfaces, traces and intervals remain capable of encountering light, architecture, atmosphere, movement and other bodies. Its interiority is therefore not simply an enclosed physical space. It is an open capacity for further correspondence.

This is what allows the notion of infinite interiority to become productive. The ceramic does not contain an infinity of meanings or preserve every encounter that has contributed to its making. Rather, its interiority remains inexhaustible because no encounter can finally determine what it may become in relation to another body. The ceramic registers without exhausting; it persists without closing; it withdraws without becoming isolated.

Attentiveness is therefore sensate because it is fundamentally concerned with what bodies can do together. It is an embodied form of inquiry in which perception is already participation, and participation is already a form of knowing. The practitioner does not first perceive a world and then act upon it. Perception, making and thought continually modify one another.

Moreton's wayfaring attentiveness can consequently be understood as an ethics and poetics of responsiveness: an ongoing willingness to remain exposed to what materials, places, architectures and other bodies might disclose. Its purpose is not to arrive at a definitive knowledge of the site, the material or the work, but to sustain the conditions under which further correspondence remains possible.

Attentiveness is sensate because it is not attention directed towards a world from outside. It is the body's participation in a world that is already moving through it.

And this gives us, I think, a very strong conceptual chain for the practice:

sensate attentiveness ~ heuristic inquiry ~ wayfaring ~ correspondence ~ accord ~ timbre ~ atmosphere ~ further bodies

The crucial point is that timbre is not the destination of this sequence. Like the sound of the flute, it is the quality of an ongoing accord. The bodies continue to wayfare; the resonance changes; another encounter becomes possible.

Attentiveness ~ Timbre ~ Wayfaring

A reading apparatus for sensate heuristic inquiry

Attentiveness here is not a looking towards something from outside. It is a becoming involved with what is already moving between bodies.

The site is encountered through temperature, scale, texture, sound, light, weight, memory, architecture and atmosphere; clay through resistance, moisture, gravity, fracture, surface and transformation. These are not simply sensations gathered by a perceiving body. They become correspondences through which the body, material and environment begin to alter one another. Russell Moreton: Correspondence

The heuristic therefore begins in the sensate.

Reading, walking, making, drawing, photographing and inhabiting become ways of moving through an uncertain spatial field. A text can redirect a site; a site can redirect material; material resistance can redirect a drawing; an image can return through ceramic. The pathway is made through the movement itself.

Perhaps this is why the flute offers such a useful sounding.

Breath does not simply enter the instrument. Breath, body, flute, air, material resistance, architecture and listening enter into an accord. Timbre is produced between them. The bodies do not merely gather.

They wayfare together.

The same possibility begins to appear within Moreton's spatial bodies. Research collages hold thought in movement. Photographic assemblages construct provisional environments. Ceramic bodies withdraw from clay while remaining open to further correspondence. The gathered does not become contained; it becomes available for another encounter.

Timbre names something of this felt middle: the sensate resonance of bodies entering correspondence without becoming identical.

The withdrawn ceramic extends this condition. Its apertures, surfaces, cavities and intervals do not close its interiority. They allow it to remain receptive to light, architecture, atmosphere, movement and other bodies. Its persistence is therefore not an ending but a capacity.

Sensate attentiveness ~ heuristic inquiry ~ wayfaring ~ correspondence ~ accord ~ timbre ~ atmosphere ~ further bodies.

What is gathered is never simply contained.

It continues to resonate.

Attentiveness — how the body becomes receptive

Heuristic inquiry — how knowing emerges through encounter

Wayfaring — how the inquiry moves

Correspondence — how bodies alter one another

Accord — how they begin to move together

Timbre — how that accord becomes sensately perceptible

Atmosphere — how the resonance extends between bodies

Further bodies — how the proposition remains open

AxisWeb : Making, Correspondence, Spatial Practice, Heuristic Inquiry and Speculative Learning.

Russell Moreton : A Visual Fine Artist

A site-based practice developing through speculative learning, creative propositions and spatial practices.

Russell Moreton is a visual fine artist whose practice explores making as a relational and speculative encounter between bodies, materials, space and thought. Working across ceramics, drawing, photography, collage and spatial practice, he is interested in the imprint not simply as the mark of an artist upon material, but as the trace of an encounter between body, material, force, resistance, movement and time.

His site-based practice develops through heuristic inquiry and wayfaring attentiveness, exploring how craft, theory, art and architecture might enter into correspondence. Through speculative making spaces, spatial assemblages and material experiments, he develops creative propositions for knowledge production in which different bodies and disciplines can remain in dialogue without needing to converge.

Moreton's practice is increasingly concerned with spatial bodies, interiority, atmosphere and the timbre of relational encounters: how materials, places, architectures, images and bodies might enter into accord and wayfare together.

A site-based practice of heuristic inquiry in which bodies, materials and spaces enter correspondence, develop an accord and wayfare together.

Moreton's site-based practice develops through a form of heuristic inquiry grounded in wayfaring attentiveness. Site is understood not simply as a geographical location but as a situated field in which bodies, materials, architectures, images, memories, histories and atmospheres enter into changing relations. Rather than beginning with a predetermined outcome, Moreton works through encounters, allowing the conditions of a site and the resistance of materials to alter what can be perceived, thought and made.

Wayfaring attentiveness describes the movement of this inquiry: a mobile, embodied and receptive practice in which reading, walking, making, drawing, photographing, collaging, inhabiting and material experimentation become interconnected modes of spatial thinking. Knowledge emerges through correspondence rather than through the detached observation of a pre-existing object of study.

The practice therefore moves beyond gathering. Heterogeneous bodies enter correspondence, and through repeated encounter may enter into an accord—a wayfaring together in which each body alters the conditions of the others. Timbre names the sensate quality of this relational accord: the resonance produced between material, bodily, spatial and affective registers. Atmosphere emerges through this resonance rather than being imposed upon the work.

Ceramic becomes particularly significant within this ecology because firing produces material persistence without securing the proposition. The withdrawn ceramic remains capable of entering further correspondences with bodies, architectures, light, atmosphere, memory and movement. Its interiority is therefore not a closed container but an open and potentially inexhaustible capacity for further resonance. The ceramic persists, while the proposition remains in play.

Moreton's site-based practice can consequently be understood as an ecology of wayfaring bodies: a spatial practice in which making becomes a form of inquiry, correspondence becomes a mode of knowing, and material persistence creates conditions for encounters that have not yet happened.

The Permeable Threshold as~ Anarchive~Interval~Interiority~Becoming

The Permeable Threshold ~ Anarchive, Interiority, Becoming

What remains from making is not necessarily what making has finished with.

Fragments, failed firings, architectural notations, images and unfinished thoughts continue to gather as bodies of potential. Through the anarchive, these residues are not simply returned to the past; they become available for other movements, entering provisional arrangements from which further propositions may emerge.

Clay troubles these gatherings. What has been assembled in images and thought encounters material resistance, the pull of gravity, the uncertainty of construction and the transformations of fire. The ceramic body that emerges does not resolve these encounters into a singular form. Its apertures, asperities and chambers hold traces of relations that continue beyond the circumstances of their making.

Bachelard's interiority and Manning's anarchive sound differently here, remaining distinct while entering correspondence through the ceramic. The permeable threshold is neither simply an opening nor a boundary. It is a material condition through which interior and exterior, archive and anarchive, persistence and possibility become available to one another.

What has withdrawn from making may still be gathering elsewhere.

The ceramic persists, while its propositions remain~in~play: open to other bodies, other readings, other spatial situations not yet encountered.

The Permeable Threshold: Russell Moreton, Bachelard, and the Anarchive as Generative Engine.

Abstract

This paper examines the contemporary ceramic and spatial practice of artist-researcher Russell Moreton through a dual theoretical framework that bridges process philosophy and spatial phenomenology. Moving away from the traditional view of the archive as a static repository for historical documentation, this study explores how Moreton operationalises studio residues—what this paper defines as "material outliers"—into a dynamic, forward-looking creative engine. By synthesizing Erin Manning’s concept of the anarchive with Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology of interiority and elemental fire, we map a hybrid studio-led methodology. This process moves non-linearly from an anarchival pool of fragments into speculative multimedia collages, before undergoing physical "material troubling" in the clay studio. The resulting ceramic works—white-painted, perforated "Permeable Chambers"—defy the traditional inside/outside binary, preserving a surface Ecology of Asperities fixed by the kiln fire. Ultimately, this paper argues that Moreton’s spatial practice offers a vital model for contemporary art research, demonstrating how embracing material errors and systematic variations keeps a creative practice radically open to future potential.

Keywords: Russell Moreton, The Anarchive, Gaston Bachelard, New Materialism, Phronesis, Permeable Chambers, Ceramic Research.

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Introduction: The Anarchival Threshold of Clay

In contemporary ceramic research, the vessel is often trapped between two dominant frameworks: the utilitarian craft object or the static sculptural monument. This paper examines the spatial practice of artist-researcher Russell Moreton, whose work challenges both paradigms by positioning the ceramic body as an actively troubling, "Permeable Chamber" (Moreton 2026). Rather than treating clay as a passive surface onto which an artist projects a predetermined image, Moreton's methodology operates as a non-linear, processual ecology. Here, the final object is generated from the unresolved tensions of past material failures, architectural notes, and conceptual anomalies—what this paper terms "material outliers."

To unpack this highly unique practice, we combine two distinct theoretical frameworks: Erin Manning’s process philosophy of the "anarchive" (Manning 2016) and Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology of spatial interiority (Bachelard 2014). By linking these concepts, we show how Moreton uses studio residues not as historical waste, but as live, generative forces. This paper traces how these outliers move from a chaotic "anarchive pool" into multimedia collages, undergo physical "material troubling" in the studio, and are finally transformed by fire into porous vessels. Ultimately, we argue that Moreton’s spatial practice offers a new model for contemporary art research, demonstrating how embracing material errors and anomalies can prevent a creative practice from freezing into predictable habits, keeping it radically open to new possibilities.

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Methodological Framework: Processual Mapping and the Anarchive Loop

Moreton’s hybrid studio-led methodology requires an unconventional research framework. Traditional artistic research often relies on a linear sequence of reflection-on-action, where the artist looks backward to document past choices. In contrast, Moreton's practice uses a feed-forward loop that values emergence over documentation (Manning and Massumi 2014). The methodology is structured into four distinct, overlapping movements:

1. Anarchival Gathering: The systematic collection of material and conceptual outliers—such as shards from cracked firings, stray architectural sketches, and unfinished texts. These items form a raw pool of potential energy.
2. Provisional Collage: Bringing these different fragments together into loose, mixed-media collages. This stage acts as a diagrammatic score, offering a temporary, non-hierarchical space of "provisional hospitality" where visual and physical anomalies can sit side-by-side without needing to form a neat, final image.
3. Material Troubling: Forcing the flat ideas of the collage into a direct, physical confrontation with the weight and resistance of clay. The maker relies on bodily intuition (phronesis) to respond in real-time to structural collapses, tears, and fissures.
4. Permeable Synthesis: Subjecting the troubled clay to the unpredictable environment of the kiln fire. The final, white-painted, perforated chamber is displayed alongside its original collage elements, presenting the exhibition space as an open, ongoing research process rather than a static display of finished goods.

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Section I: The Anarchive of the Outlier: Manning’s Feed-Forward Mechanics

To understand the generative role of the material anomaly in Russell Moreton’s ceramics, one must completely discard the traditional, linear archival paradigm. Within institutional and standard studio frameworks, the archive functions as a retrospective museum—a site of containment designed to document, classify, and ultimately freeze past production into a neat, chronological history.

In sharp contrast, Moreton’s studio operations deploy what cultural theorist Erin Manning defines as the anarchive. The anarchive is not a collection of passive, historical artifacts; it is an active "repertory of traces of events" and a "feed-forward mechanism for lines of creative process" (Manning 2016: 28). For Manning, these traces are never inert. Instead, they function as dynamic vectors of potential energy, waiting to be reactivated to trigger a new event that continues the creative process in a state of constant variation (Manning 2013).

In Moreton’s practice, the "outliers"—unresolved ceramic experiments, structural shards, unclassifiable media collages, and erratic architectural notation—are the foundational seeds of this anarchival engine. Rather than being hidden away as failures or historical detritus, these outliers are treated as speculative spatial bodies. They possess what Manning and Massumi (2014: 87) term a "pull"—an intensive, non-linear demand that pushes the studio practice out of habitual, safe patterns.

By gathering these disparate, residual fragments into provisional collages, Moreton creates a space of hospitality. The collage stage does not seek to synthesize or resolve these anomalies into a singular, harmonious narrative. Instead, it lets them sit together in their full difference, functioning as open-ended, diagrammatic scores for future physical forms. When these anarchival traces are pushed forward into clay, they break the typical artist-subject relationship. The outlier stops being a passive object from the past; it becomes a feed-forward projectile that disrupts the standard making process, ensuring that the emergent ceramic forms remain open to new possibilities.

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Section II: Material Troubling, Phronesis, and the Ecology of Asperities

The transition from the flat, hospitable space of the collage to the heavy, gravity-bound reality of clay marks a shift from speculative thought to intense physical confrontation. It is here that Moreton engages in "material troubling." In this phase, the flat, accommodating space of the collage is deliberately forced to confront the stubborn, unpredictable nature of wet earth.

This phase cannot be navigated using intellectual distance or rigid blueprints. Instead, it demands what Aristotelian philosophy terms phronesis—a form of practical, lived wisdom that cannot be taught in textbooks but must be experienced in real-time through the body. In Moreton’s studio, phronesis operates as a shared, physical dialogue between the maker’s hand and the shifting state of the clay. As slab walls are raised, pierced, scored, and pulled apart, the artist does not impose a top-down, authoritarian form onto the medium. Instead, the making process becomes a live negotiation with the clay's moisture, its structural memory, and the constant pull of gravity.

This negotiated dialogue directly manifests on the object's surface as an Ecology of Asperities (Moreton 2026). Moreton does not smooth over the tears, cracks, or asymmetrical warping that happen as the clay processes the complex demands of its past outlier fragments. Instead, these structural disruptions are welcomed as meaningful traces of the making event itself (Massumi 2011).

By treating these surface scars as vital elements rather than mistakes, Moreton aligns his practice with New Materialism (DeLanda 2006). The clay is recognized as an active partner in the creative process, possessing its own internal forces, tendencies, and material memory (Deleuze and Guattari 1987). The Ecology of Asperities ensures that the emerging ceramic body retains the raw, unresolved tension of the original outliers. The physical struggles of the material are preserved, setting the stage for the final, radical transformation that occurs when the vessel enters the kiln fire.

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Section III: Bachelardian Topographies: Fire Analysis, Intimate Immensity, and the Permeable Chamber

Once the anarchival intensities of the outliers are physically forced into the clay, Moreton’s work moves into a deeply phenomenological realm. The final, white-painted, perforated vessels function as Permeable Chambers—tangible, architectural manifestations of what Gaston Bachelard explores in The Poetics of Space. Bachelard asserts that "inhabited space transcends geometrical space" (Bachelard 2014: 67), arguing that our domestic shelters and intimate corners are psychological realms that house human memory, reverie, and the soul. Moreton’s chambers are precisely this: non-functional, experienced architectures that prompt an immediate psychological response from the viewer.

To understand how these chambers achieve their unique interiority, one must look to Bachelard’s broader elemental imaginary, particularly his analysis of fire. In Bachelard’s philosophy, fire is the ultimate dialectical element—it is both a destructive force and a material paradise that purifies and creates (Bachelard 1964: 7). The kiln fire acts as the definitive threshold of transformation in Moreton's practice. The fire takes the scarred surfaces of the clay—the Ecology of Asperities—and permanentizes them. The cracks, score marks, and punctured voids are not treated as structural flaws; through the fire, they become the vital windows that allow the interior of the vessel to breathe.

This process directly addresses the classic Bachelardian dialectic of inside and outside. The geometric division of inside and outside usually blinds us, turning space into a rigid binary of positive and negative, open and closed (Bachelard 2014: 228). Moreton’s Permeable Chambers completely deconstruct this binary. By coating the heavily textured exteriors in matte white paint and perforating the walls, the pieces refuse to keep their interior spaces completely hidden or separate. Light, shadow, and air pass continuously through the clay boundaries. The chamber becomes a site of intimate immensity—a miniature structure that holds a vast, silent, and contemplative interior world (Bachelard 2014: 192). It offers the viewer a safe space for psychological refuge and deep daydreaming, while remaining fundamentally independent, mysterious, and closed off from easy consumption.

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Conclusion: The Open Threshold

Russell Moreton’s spatial practice offers a profound reimagining of how material history, studio labour, and physical objects interact within contemporary art research. By refusing to discard the residues, cracked experiments, and erratic notations of his past work, Moreton demonstrates that the material outlier is not a sign of failure or waste, but rather the most critical asset a generative system possesses. The anarchive workflow successfully moves the studio archive out of its traditional role as a passive graveyard of documentation, turning it instead into a vital, forward-pushing engine for new work.

Through the distinct phases of provisional collage, material troubling, and the transformative threshold of the kiln fire, these anarchival fragments are systematically processed without ever being forced into a neat, uniform resolution. The final Permeable Chambers stand as physical proof of this negotiated dialogue. Marked by an Ecology of Asperities and shifting between interior darkness and external light, these porous vessels dismantle the classic Bachelardian binary of inside and outside. They achieve an intimate immensity—inviting the viewer into a space of quiet contemplation while remaining completely autonomous, mysterious, and independent.

Ultimately, Moreton’s methodology offers a valuable blueprint for the broader field of artistic research. It proves that when an artist surrenders absolute control and enters into a reciprocal, bodily dialogue (phronesis) with a resistant medium, the resulting objects escape the trap of being easily consumed or used up. By weaving the anomalies of the past into the physical forms of the present, the creative process remains a vital, living threshold—radically alive, continuously breathing, and forever open to the future.

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Bibliography

• Bachelard, G. (1964) The Psychoanalysis of Fire. Translated by A. C. M. Ross. Boston: Beacon Press.
• Bachelard, G. (2014) The Poetics of Space. Translated by M. Jolas. New York: Penguin Books.
• DeLanda, M. (2006) A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London: Continuum.
• Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Manning, E. (2013) Always More Than One: Individuation’s Dance. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Manning, E. (2016) The Minor Gesture. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Manning, E. and Massumi, B. (2014) Thought in the Act: Passages in the Ecology of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Massumi, B. (2002) Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Massumi, B. (2011) Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Moreton, R. (2026) 'The Ceramic Body is an actively Attentively~Troubling Permeable Chamber', Russell Moreton Research Journal, 16 September [Online]. Available at: russellmoreton.com (Accessed: 21 September 2026).

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