Disnovation.org

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art /
May 19 – July 31 / Curator: Zane Cerpina / Co-curator: Espen Gangvik

A BESTIARY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

DISNOVATION.ORG (PL/FR/DE)

A BESTIARY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE is an illustrated compilation of hybrid creatures of our time, equally inspired by medieval bestiaries and observations of our damaged planet. Designed as a field handbook, it aims at helping us observe, navigate, and orientate into the increasingly artificial fabric of the world. Plastiglomerates, surveillance robot dogs, fordite, artificial grass, antenna trees, Sars-Covid-2, decapitated mountains, drone-fighting eagles, standardized bananas… each of these specimens are symptomatic of the rapidly transforming “post-natural” era we live in. Often without us even noticing them, these creatures exponentially spread and co-exist with us.

A BESTIARY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE seeks to capture this precise moment when the biosphere and technosphere merge and mesh into one new hybrid body. What happens when technologies and their unintended consequences become so ubiquitous that it is difficult to define what is “natural” or not? What does it mean to live in a hybrid environment made of organic and synthetic matter? What new specimens are currently populating our planet at the beginning of the 21st century?

A BESTIARY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE includes: 100+ original collages and handmade pointillist illustrations | 60 written observations on selected hybrid specimens & creatures | 11 long contributions, and original critical essays by leading experts.

DISNOVATION.ORG
Founded in 2012 by Nicolas Maigret and Maria Roszkowska, DISNOVATION.ORG is both an art collective and an international workgroup engaged in the crossovers between contemporary arts, research and hacking. Artist and philosopher Baruch Gottlieb joined the collective in 2018. Together, they develop situations of interference, discussion and speculation that question dominant techno-positivist ideologies in order to foster post-growth narratives. Their research is expressed through installations, performances, websites and events. They recently co-edited A Bestiary of the Anthropocene, an atlas of anthropic hybrid creatures, and The Pirate Book, an anthology about media piracy.

Their work has been presented at numerous art centers and festivals internationally such as Centre Pompidou (Paris), Transmediale (Berlin), the Museum of Art and Design (New York), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), FILE (Sao Paulo), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Strelka Institute (Moscow), ISEA (Hong Kong), Elektra (Montréal), China Museum of Digital Arts (Beijing), and the Chaos Computer Congress (Hamburg). Their work has been featured in Forbes, Vice, Wired, Motherboard, Libération, Die Zeit, Arte TV, Next Nature, Hyperallergic, Le Temps, Neural.it, Digicult, Gizmodo, Seattle Weekly, torrentfreak.com, and Filmmaker Magazine among others.

disnovation.org

Header Graphics: “A Bestiary of the Anthropocene” by disnovation.org.

Annike Flo

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art / May 19 – July 31 /
Curator: Zane Cerpina / Co-curator: Espen Gangvik

States of Chimera / 2022

Annike Flo [NO]

We are no longer considered to be individuals, but metaorganisms; chimera, made into being from the collaborative force of microorganisms and our own cells. I look into my own visceral connections, to the in-human (Jeffrey J. Cohen), to the aliens within. Symbiosis moves us away from old hierarchies of concepts and beings. Attempting to feel myself as metaorganism, a heaving gelatinous pile of loose connections, consummation, reproduction, and decay, I feel the queerness and erotic possibilities of this monstrous condition that it is to be me, monster, human. The Erotic is often connected to our private sphere, but what is private and what does it mean to love oneself when both encompasses the trillions of bodies that make us up? Where does the line between self love and zoophilia go?

Silk, fur, feather, leather – all which are made from other beings, yet touch both our mind and body in inexplicable ways. Sexuality and the queer is often expressed through these materials, and, together with cloth and synthetic varieties, so has my own expression of myself and my erotic.

Annike Flo
Annike Flo (b. 1986) is a cross-disciplinary artist and scenographer. Inspired by the Anthropocene as a concept, Flo investigates what it means to create in our current era, with a focus on our relationship to other beings. She is inspired by research, materials and methods from other fields, and often collaborates with researchers and practitioners from other disciplines. From 2018 to 2021 Flo led the new arena  for art and science, NOBA, Norwegian BioArt Arena, at Vitenparken, Ås. Annike holds an MA in scenography from Norwegian Theatre Academy and a BA in costume from LCF, University of the Arts, London (2010).

annikeflo.com

Header Graphics: “States of Chimera” by Annike Flo.

Ai Hasegawa

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art / May 19 – July 31 /
Curator: Zane Cerpina / Co-curator: Espen Gangvik

I WANNA DELIVER A DOLPHIN… / 2013

Ai Hasegawa [JP]

Humans are genetically predisposed to raise children as a way of passing on their genes to the next generation. For some, the struggle to raise a child in decent conditions is becoming harder due to gross overpopulation and an increasingly strained global environment.

This project approaches the problem of human reproduction in an age of overcrowding, overdevelopment and environmental crisis. With potential food shortages and a population of nearly seven billion people, would a woman consider incubating and giving birth to an endangered species such as a shark, tuna or dolphin? This project introduces the argument for giving birth to our food to satisfy our demands for nutrition and childbirth, and discusses some of the technical details of how this might be possible.

Would raising this animal as a child change its value so drastically that we would be unable to consume it because it would be imbued with the love of motherhood? The Maui’s dolphin has been chosen as the ideal ‘baby’ for this piece. It is one of the world’s rarest and smallest dolphins, classified critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation’s Red List of Threatened Species (version 2.3) because of the side effects of fishing activity by humans, its size (which closely matches the size of a human baby), and its high intelligence level and communication abilities.

I Wanna Deliver a Dolphin… imagines a point in the future, where humans will help this species by the advanced technology of synthetic biology. A ‘dolp-human placenta’ that allows a human female to deliver a dolphin is created, and thus humans can become a surrogate mother to endangered species. Furthermore, gourmets would be able to enjoy the luxury of eating a rare animal: an animal made by their own body, raising questions of the ownership of rare animal life, and life itself.

Ai Hasegawa
Artist. Her work focuses on the relationship between technology and people. His provocative works invite viewers to debate ethical boundaries, and often deal with themes related to reproduction and the future of life and death. Her book “How to be a Revolutionary in 20XX” has been published in Japan and Taiwan.

aihasegawa.info

Header Graphics: “I Wanna Deliver a Dolphin…” by Ai Hasegawa.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art / May 19 – July 31 /
Curator: Zane Cerpina / Co-curator: Espen Gangvik

RE-ANIMATED / 2018 – 19

Jakob Kudsk Steensen [DK/DE]

RE-ANIMATED explores the intersections of extinction, preservation of immortality. It is a re-imagining of ornithologist Douglas H. Pratt’s memories of the now extinct Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird, as told to Artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen. In the work, a vast virtual landscape based on Kaua’i unfolds and transforms into a photorealistic new world for people to explore. 3D-scanned organic material sourced from both field work and the American Museum of Natural History, as well as real archival audio are all remixed together, alongside algorithmic music composed by Michael Riesman, Musical Director for the Philip Glass Ensemble. Plants, moss, and insects respond to the pulse of music generated in real-time, and the audience’s breath and voice organically impact the virtual atmosphere through the VR headset. As a slow-moving, poetic virtual environment, RE-ANIMATED investigates how we relate to nature irrevocably altered by human activity. It provokes fresh perspectives on our ecological future, which may become unbound by the physical conditions governing our present reality.

RE-ANIMATED combines virtual reality with 3 video pieces – Arrival, Mating Call, and The Bug Zapper. 

RE-ANIMATED, Arrival
RE-ANIMATED, Arrival begins with a descent upon the virtual simulation of the island of Kauai and the Alakai plateau. The viewer travels through time, onto the 5 billion year old volcanic island. It is a slow, meditative fall through layers of clouds, humidity, clouds and finally landing on the misty, humid atmosphere of the plateau’s jungle forest, the home of the Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird, before it went extinct during the 1980s because of avian malaria.

The Arrival is a layered story of explorers, missionaries and naturalists, also of the birds, the mosquitos and a virus, avian malaria, interacting with the landscape, through time. Between the 18th, 19th and 20th century, as the elevation drops slowly, the viewer experiences the impact the species have on the island, on each other over the years, changing the land and the life in permanent and ephemeral ways.

RE-ANIMATED, Mating Call
RE-ANIMATED, Mating Call is based on the last Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird, which died in 1987, marking the extinction of its species. In 2009 its mating call – first recorded in 1975 and later digitized in an ornithology lab in New York – was uploaded to YouTube. Since then, the song of the Kaua’i ʻōʻō calling in vain to a mate who was not there has been played more than half a million times. The project is a response to this mating call.

RE-ANIMATED, The Bug Zapper
RE-ANIMATED, The Bug Zapper, begins with a sensory and immersive journey through the foliage of the island, moving through leaves, water and roots. Through a hypnotic light, the space transforms into a virtual exhibition with flies covering the walls. These flies turn slowly into letters, warning us of the self-reflective nature of peace – we are drawn by digital media to consume these stories of extinction, just as the flies are drawn by the bug zapper into their own doom.

RE-ANIMATED is made with support from Tranen Center for Contemporary Art, The Danish Arts Foundation, Bikuben Foundation, Harvestworks, Mana Contemporary and Artist Alliance.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Jakob Kudsk Steensen (b. 1987, Denmark) is an artist working with environmental storytelling through 3d animation, sound and immersive installations. He creates poetic interpretations about overlooked natural phenomena through collaborations with field biologists, composers and writers. Projects are based on extensive fieldwork. Key collaborators include Musician ARCA, Composer and Musical Director for the Philip Glass Ensemble Michael Riesman, Ornithologist and author Dr. Douglas H. Pratt, Architect Sir David Adjaye OBE RA, BTS, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the Natural History Museum Berlin, among others.

Jakob has recently exhibited with his major solo exhibition Berl-Berl in Berlin at Halle am Berghain, commissioned by LAS, and at Luma Arles with Liminal Lands for the Prelude exhibition. He was a finalist for the Future Generation Art Prize at the 2019 Venice Biennale. He received the Serpentine Augmented Architecture commission in 2019 to create his work The Deep Listener with Google Arts and Culture. He is the recipient of the best VR graphics for RE-ANIMATED (2019) at the Cinequest Festival for Technology and Cinema, the Prix du Jury (2019) at Les Rencontres Arles, the Webby Award – People’s Choice VR (2018), and the Games for Change Award – Most Innovative (2018) among others.

jakobsteensen.com

Header Graphics: “RE-ANIMATED” by Jakob Kudsk Steensen.
Portrait Photograph: Bastian Thiery.

Leena Saarinen

Meta.Morf 2022 – Ecophilia / Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art / May 19 – July 31 /
Curator: Zane Cerpina / Co-curator: Espen Gangvik

Birdsong / 2019

Leena Saarinen [FI]

Video 3 min 29 sec

In the piece Birdsong Leena Saarinen aims to bring the languages of people and birds closer to each other by creating an alphabet for birdsong. For the piece she has studied sound visualization through spectrograms. While studying bird vocalizations she found that the whistle tones in the spectrograms look visually similar to letters or alphabets. That is one of the links Saarinen tries to make in order to bring the human and nonhuman languages closer to each other. She looks for connections and similarities between the languages in order to dismantle their structures and hierarchies. She is also interested in different kinds of translations between image, sound and text and what knowledge can be gained and lost in the translation process.

Leena Saarinen
Leena Saarinen (b. 1988) is a visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Her practice is multidisciplinary and research based. She works with questions of posthumanism in the age of climate change and mass extinctions. In her work she studies culture, language and the relationship between human and non-human species. Her works have been exhibited in galleries, museums and public spaces in Finland and internationally. She is currently doing her master’s degree in the Academy of Fine Arts in University of the Arts Helsinki in the sculpture department.

leenasaarinen.com

Header Graphics: “Birdsong” by Leena Saarinen.