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Abstract: This study explores Slovenian bio-art through the lens of new materialism and feminist posthumanism, focusing on six prominent artists: Saša Spačal, Robertina Šebjanič, Špela Petrič, Doroteja Dolinšek, Zoran Srdič Janežič, and Maja Smrekar. Their work interrogates interspecies relationships, ecological entanglements, and technological mediation, offering critical insights into contemporary bio-media practices. Positioned within a robust institutional framework of long-standing associations and a national funding scheme, these artists have achieved international recognition while contributing significantly to the development of intermedia art globally. Exemplified by a selected artwork each, their artistic practices are situated within new materialist, media ecological and posthuman feminist theoretical discourses. The paper highlights how contemporary bio-artistic practices challenge anthropocentric narratives, foster multispecies ethics, and redefine both uman and non-human agency. The particular ecosystem of the globally entangled yet in some ways also specifically Slovenian bio-art may demonstrate how artistic practices can facilitate ecological awareness and technological critique while fostering alternative modes of knowing, and eventually contribute to positioning art as a transformative force in contemporary cultural discourse.
Keywords: Slovenian bio-art, feminist posthumanism, new materialism, political ecology, media anthropology, Saša Spačal, Robertina Šebjanič, Špela Petrič, Doroteja Dolinšek, Zoran Srdič Janežič, Maja Smrekar
Published in RUNG: 19.02.2025; Views: 468; Downloads: 0
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Abstract: abstract The article explores the concepts, tools and methods that may be taken on board by artistic researchers when venturing into uncertain futures. The approaching hay-day of Artistic Research calls for a repositioning of this academic and cultural avantgarde that is assuming real power and must thus take clear opposition against dominant politics and corporate capitalism keeping the human and non-human kinds in perpetual crisis. Next to Science and Technology, Art has finally reached a status of an equivalued cornerstone, and within this level playing field a new research-based approach is needed where power relationships, decision-making mechanisms, dominant narratives or prevalent aesthetics are boldly investigated and critically questioned, (re)instituting the importance of artistic disruption and establishing art-thinking as the key to not only question but also design pathways to meaningful change. Deeply intertwined research methodologies ranging from social to natural sciences, from humanities via (critically reflected) technologies to the (technologically emancipated) arts, should be left to safely mingle and mutually inspire. Rather than colonizing it with yet another false supremacy, we should be learning from the Global South, where collective dancing, storytelling or performing still presents a norm of how to generate new knowledge or reach consensus. Artistic Research can contribute to crafting better worlds even once AI entities get accepted as fellow researchers (if not dancers), their agency reflected in an attitude of radical sympathy (re)instituting care, justice and solidarity by ways of sound research activism.
Keywords: artistic research, interdisciplinary, posthumanism, art-science-technology, critical
Published in RUNG: 15.06.2023; Views: 2054; Downloads: 22
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