Aljoscha


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15.05.-14.06.2015
"Animism and Bioism"
National Museum of Natural History in cooperation with Goethe Institut, Sofia, Bulgaria.

Curated by Gérard A. Goodrow


Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism

Aljoscha, bioism, biofuturism


During my visit to the Museum of Natural History in 2014, I had the strong feeling that I was walking through a vast and beautiful genetic storage or repository of biological diversity, which also has certain aesthetic qualities. Later, the panopticum of all these impressions resulted in a series of new works comprised of both drawings and objects. While creating these works of art, I deliberately sought completely new forms, i.e. neither interpretations nor descriptions of exhibits I had seen at the museum – but indeed inspired by these.

This artistic process can be defined as “bioism” or “biofuturism”. Presuming the future ability to create new living organisms, which synthetic biology may possibly make available to artists in the years to come, I consciously question the primacy of functionality over pure aesthetics and ephemerality over the visible.

Was this museum visit a simple analysis of biological machines, which were once working, and now remain as a mere optical collection of biological codes? No, it was much more an attempt to find new designs of living forms with the hitherto utopian aim of one day making these actual species, their possible vivification.

The problems that go along with the catastrophic reduction of species of flora and fauna due to the seemingly unstoppable growth of the human population will sooner or later force civilization to reconstruct species, as well as to search for and develop new synthetic species, which would be compatible with existing ones.

Therefore, I am interested in the theoretical possibility of creating new “biofacts”, not for the economy of the future, but for the philosophical and ethical systems of animism; the definition of "life"; a biogenesis, perhaps even on other planets.

Objects created during this period were originally planned as highly complex forms with a great deal of micro-mutations and a broad application of combinatorics, providing a wide range of metamorphoses. “Biofuturistic” art objects achieved in this way were placed in a visual and ethical dialogue with the permanent exhibition of the Museum.