[ISEA2019] Paper: Mariana Pérez-Bobadilla — Transcendence and Microbiopolitics: Art and biology as material speculation

Abstract

Keywords: Microbiopolitics, Art and biology, Posthuman, Bioart, Bacteria, New materialism

Death, decay, and transcendence are transformed if interpreted from a microbial perspective. This paper constructs a non-anthropocentric approach on a microbial scale through the concept of microbiopolitics, an expanded notion of biopolitics with the inclusion of zoe, a postanthropocentric interpretation of ecological relations, focused on the life of microorganisms and introducing an ecological thought for the microbial planet. This research explores, in particular, the work of Latin American artists Ana Laura Cantera and Gilberto Esparza as a form of material speculation that opens up alternatives of thought grounded on the accountability of biological and technological matter, its limits and possibilities.

  • Mariana Pérez Bobadilla is an Art Historian specialized in the intersections of art, science, and technology, particularly in the Mexican media art scene. She received an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship to study a master in Gender Studies at the University of Bologna, Italy, researching Feminist Epistemology and Contemporary Art. She has presented her work at ISEA, EVA, ISCMA, the Ammerman Symposium of Art and Science, and has been involved in the Mexican Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale. Her academic training includes courses with Rosi Braidotti, and the international curators’ course of the 2014 Gwangju Art Biennale, in South Korea. Awarded by the Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellowship Scheme, her research in the School of Creative Media revolves around art and biology, epistemology, history of science, new materialism, biohacking, wetware, and bacteria.

Full text (PDF) p. 601-606