Meanings and Materialities
Meanings and Materialities
Exhibition 6–15 June
Open every day 12:00-18:00Katri Naukkarinen & Laura Beloff
In the beginning there was a fish living in the sea. A scientist caught that fish, brought it to the land and noticed an interesting phenomenon: when bacteria on its surface forms colonies, they arrange as crystals that can be seen as structural color, no pigment involved.
This talk critically addresses the utilization of non-human organisms as part of the economy of gifting. Our presentation focuses on the development and artistic work process with Flavobacterium bacteria.
We received the bacteria as a gift from a biotechnology company from the Netherlands. This company is working with the bacteria to understand its structure’s potential as a commercial product. Already this process of receiving the bacteria from these scientists, growing it in an art context and investigating its background and history forms a complex network of relations, actions and also protocols.
Our process involves control but also care. One can ask: Is there a difference in the treatment of living bacterial material for artistic use, in comparison to its use by companies for commercial purposes? Where is the border between care and maintenance? How is the economy of gifting established in this case, and which of the involved parties are allowed agency?
The talk is related to our artistic experiment with Flavobacterium; Gâteau Vivant.
The work is developed in affiliation with ONAPADE project funded by Aalto University / Radical Creativity.
Laura Beloff (PhD) is an internationally acclaimed artist and a researcher. Research interests include practice-based investigations into a combination of information, technology, biology, and organic matter, which is in the cross section of practice-based art, science and technology. Currently, she is Associate Professor and Head of Doctoral Education at the Department of Art & Media at Aalto University, Finland.
Katri Naukkarinen (MfA) is an interdisciplinary artist who often thinks through photography. She is also a doctoral researcher at Aalto University. Naukkarinen’s artistic research considers the limits of human vision and explores frequencies and scales beyond them with the help of modified cameras, archaic science apparatus and poetry. She holds an MfA from Aalto ARTS with BAs in both Photography and Aesthetics.