[ISEA2019] Paper: Jongcheon Shin, Siwon Lee, Suk Chon, Keyan Jiang & Joonsung Yoon — Seeing Life: The Impalpable Entanglement of an Artist and Microbes in Bio-Art

Abstract

Keywords: Bio-art, Schrödinger’s hypothesis of life, Merleau-Ponty’s painting theory, Genesis of things, Communion, Painting system, Bio-art system

This paper introduces Korean bio-artist’s works producing fungi-based patterns and analyzes them as aesthetic results which apply Erwin Schrödinger’s hypothesis of life and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s painting theory, in order to con- sider the impalpable entanglement between an artist and microbes in the creation process of bio-art. Schrödinger regarded life as an open system, and implied that a living sys- tem imports negative entropy and stores it. Interestingly, it can be linked to ‘the genesis of things’ of Merleau-Ponty. In his painting theory, he focuses on the inseparable interactions between an artist and visible things. It could draw the aesthetic discussion of life that recognizes things as living beings and connects the aesthetic process with the interaction between an artist and things. Furthermore, it is related  to the aesthetic characteristics of bio-art in which art inter- twines with life.

  • Jongcheon ShinSuk Chon, Global School of Media, Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea
  • Joonsung Yoon, Global School of Media, Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea and Digital Media Art, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
  • Siwon Lee,  Fiber Science Design, Dankook University, Yongin, Korea
  • Keyan Jiang, Digital Media Art, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China

Full text (PDF) p.  50-55