The social and psychological transformations of the pandemic and the consequences of the climate
and energy crises have brought to the forefront that life is first and foremost that of agencies other than human. Simple
demarcations no longer stand up to this dynamic.
We humans are colonized by bacteria, fungi and
viruses, just as we colonize homes, cities and environments. We also serve as hosts to ideologies, media and technologies.
The
concept of the holobiont, introduced in 1991 by biologist Lynn Margulis, describes us humans as a total living being permeated
by the biosphere.
It explores the self-conception of individual life, links us symbiotically with
other organisms via our microbiome, disturbs the division into subject and object and offends our usual concept of ego. Understanding
the world as a holobiont reminds us: Life is other!
Curated by Judith Reichart, Lucie Strecker,
Thomas Feuerstein, Jens Hauser
Jens Hauser
Jens Hauser is a Paris and
Copenhagen based media studies scholar and art curator focusing on the interactions between art and technology. He is currently
a professor in art history at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), an affiliated researcher at University of Copenhagen’s
Medical Museion, a postdoc researcher at the Medical University Vienna, and a distinguished affiliated faculty member at Michigan
State University, where he co-directs the BRIDGE artist in residency program. At the intersection of media studies, art history
and epistemology, he has developed a theory of biomediality as part of his PhD at Ruhr University Bochum, and also holds a
degree in science and technology journalism from Université François Rabelais in Tours.
With
contributions by
Art Orienté Objet, Irini Athanassakis, David Berry, Julia Borovaya, Adam Brown,
Juan M. Castro & Akihiro Kubota, Tagny Duff, Thomas Feuerstein, Karmen Franinovic, Ana Maria Gomez Lopez, Luis Hernan/Pei-Ying
Lin/Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa, Hideo Iwasaki, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Eduardo Kac, Roman Kirschner, Lynn Margulis/Dorion Sagan/Bruce
Clarke/David McConville, Yann Marussich, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, ORLAN, Špela Petrič, Chris Salter, Maja Smrekar, Klaus Spiess/Ulla
Rauter/Emanuel Gollob, Lucie Strecker/KT Zakravsky, Tina Tarpgaard, Paul Vanouse, M R Vishnuprasad, Peter Weibel, and authors
of the special issue On Micorperformativity, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 2020, 25 (3).
Scenography:
Wolfgang Fiel, Institute for cultural policy
The exhibition was curated originally for the Magazin
4 exhibition space in Bregenz. The content was adapted and expanded for display at Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab (AIL).
