“We are of the universe – there is no inside, no outside. There is only intra-acting from within and as part of the world in its becoming.” – Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway
Matter as such is always defined by the point of view, but what if the body of the viewer is no longer only one? Ecological communities of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi and archaea that constitute the microbiome of human bodies indicate the plurality of human body that can no longer be seen as one but as many, as multiple. Multiplicity of body does not act as one, each biological entity has it’s own role that is enacted in collaboration with others or on it’s own. Enactment defines and activates entities needed for completing the act that environment calls for. At that moment the body emerges in intra-acting with the environment, at that moment the body becomes and is perceived as one, however it’s entities are always multiple and never the same in the next intra-act. Oneness of the body as such emerges only in the specific spacetime, where it intra-acts and than dissolves into multiplicity that awaits it’s new becoming.
Mycophone_unison in the spacetime of multiplicities serves as a navigation tool. A sound map of intra-action between three microbiomes of the bodies of it’s authors and the viewer. By pressing the fingerprint the viewer sends a signal to the map that processes it through the central celestial plate to the microbiomes that modulate it as a sound of unison. The multiplicities of the authors are heard as one for one brief moment in the here and now.
Mycophone_unison
Saša Spačal, dr. Mirjan Švagelj, Anil Podgornik
Photos: Boštjan Lah / KIBLA Photo Archive, Damjan Švarc / Kapelica Gallery Photo Archive
Project website: Mycophone_unison
Production: Multimedia center KIBLA.
Exhibitions
Excite Conference, Kersnikova Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia [June 2024]
Efect de la micro la macro Exhibition, curators Simona Nichiteanu, Miruna Amza, Quantum Questions, Centrul Cultural Clujean, Cluj-Napoca, Romania [Nov. – Dec. 2020]
Living Object Exhibition, curator Alenka Trebušak, City Gallery Ljubljana, Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, Slovenia [Sept. – Nov. 2018]
Athens Digital Arts Festival: Singularity now, Athens, Greece [May 2018]
SIQ – Slovenian Institute of Quality and Metrology, Slovenia [Oct. 2017]
Kunigunda – Festival of Young Cultures, Velenje, Slovenia [Aug. 2017]
Maker Faire Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia [May 2017]
Excursion: Ecologies, Transmediale, Silent Green, Berlin, Germany [Feb. 2017]
Nonhuman Subjectivities: The Other Selves. On the Phenomenon of the Microbiome Exhibiton, Art Laboratory Berlin, Berlin, Germany [Feb. – April 2016]
Symbiome – Economy of Symbiosis, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova – MSUM+, Ljubljana, Slovenia [Dec. 2016]
Sonica – Festival of Transitory Art, MoTA – Museum of Transitory Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia [Nov. 2014]
Soft Control: Tomorrow festival, Dom Omladine, Belgrade, Serbia [Nov. 2014]
International Triennial of New Media Art 2014, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China [Jun. 2014]
MFRU – KIBLIX 2013: When worlds collide, Maribor, Slovenia [Nov. 2013]
Solo exhibition
Gallery Dimenzija napredka, Nova Gorica, Slovenia [Dec. 2013]
Presentation
84e du Congrès de l’Acfas: Symposium L’identité humaine au prisme du microbiome: perspectives artistiques et enjeux philosophiques, Montreal, Canada [May 2016]