Four-dimensional T-shirt Worm and Other Creatures

The project addresses dichotomies between natural and synthetic materials and material inquiries into metaphysical notions of persistence through time as endurance, perdurance and exdurance. A partially biodegraded t-shirt conveys contrasting biodegradability properties – as regenerative or non-regenerative – contemplating how garment lives [and after lives] might be perceived as they endure, persist, regenerate or disintegrate over time. A Four-dimensional T-shirt Worm, here understood as perdurance or worm theory, touches upon similar notions as ways of looking at garments through time. In metaphysical theories, the endurance perspective understands objects as being wholly present at each moment in time and persist by being the same thing at all times. In perdurance objects are space-time worms extended in time and space and persist by having different temporal parts at different times. A third notion, referred to as exdurance or stage theory, refer to objects instead as temporal stages or slices that are relational counterparts to each other.

The work forms part of the exhibition [Flatland] at Kullbingen (2026) and the interdisciplinary artistic research PhD Reactive and Proactive Materials in the Anthropocene – situated at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.