In the group exhibition Boundless Objects, curated by Monika Bakke, from October 12 2019 to March 29 2020, it is possible to observe a review of the central moments of the project Burned by Blue, which began in 1993.
Boundless objects
exhibition curated by Monika Bakke at the Centro Cultural Eugénio de Almeida, Évora
October 12, 2019 - March 29, 2020
The infinity of objects is among the most mundane experiences. Yet, objects viewed as flows of matter and energy become boundless as unlimited manifestations of various forces allowing for the most unique outcomes. Although objects are everywhere – emerging and disintegrating with different speeds – their complex networks and endless entanglements are not easy to trace. Hence, the question is not really what they are but how they become? Objects – living & nonliving, real & virtual – are never complete, stable or inert, and they are emerging only in relations within specific human and nonhuman contexts. They do not possess predetermined identities but they transform and transmute, briefly becoming others as well as ourselves.
The exhibition Boundless Objects is situated at the intersection of art, philosophy, science and technology and it aims to bring together contemporary art practices which offer inquiries into different dynamics in which objects emerge and transmute. It is inspired by current philosophical interest in matter viewed as active and capable to self organize. This comes with the realization that change and agency can no longer just be associated with humans and even with life alone. Objects, both alive and nonliving, now perceived as forces, connections, exchanges, transformations, and flows become boundless. Bodies of animals become bodies of trees, liquids become crystals, human body becomes a set of data, seed becomes a plant, maggot becomes a fly, virtual objects make a transition into a material world with help of our bodies or 3D printers; solid objects dissolve, disintegrate or become flexible; they might intrude spaces and haunt us, warn us, or perhaps just do their own thing regardless of our wishes or expectations. We touch them as much as they touch us. Monika Bakke
Works by:
Ana Leonor Madeira Rodrigues, Ana Rewakowicz, André Sier, Erica Seccombe, Izabella Gustowska, Jennifer Robertson, Kathy High, Marek Wasilewski, Marta de Menezes, Nikolaus Gansterer, Piotr Bosacki e Renata Rosado.
Monika Bakke is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. She writes on contemporary art and aesthetics with a particular interest in posthumanist, transspecies and gender perspectives. She is the author of Bio-transfigurations: Art and Aesthetics of Posthumanism (2010, in Polish) and Open Body (2000, in Polish) co-author of Pleroma: Art in Search of Fullness (1998), and editor of Australian Aboriginal Aesthetics (2004, in Polish), Going Aerial: Air, Art, Architecture (2006) and The Life of Air: Dwelling, Communicating, Manipulating (2011). From 2001 till 2017 she was working as an editor of a Polish cultural journal Czas Kultury [Time of Culture]. Currently her research focuses on nonlife forces and new articulations of mineral presence in contemporary art and natural history museums.