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30 sept au 09 oct 2010 - The Insides of Things / L’intérieur des choses - K. Bear Koss
The Insides of Things / L’intérieur des choses - K. Bear Koss
A l’heure des nanotechnologies et des mondes virtuels, les représentations que nous avons de notre propre intériorité se modifient... Etre humain se définit-il tout simplement par un ensemble de réactions biologiques, par une construction sociale, ou par un modèle informationnel? Le plasticien américain K. Bear Koss questionne par son travail la pertinence des connaissances acquises par l’observation de la matière, et de nos capacité variables de saisir ou d’imaginer cet état obscur de l’intérieur des choses...
Vernissage le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à partir de 18h
Exposition du 30 au 09 octobre 2010
de 15h à 19h (sauf dim. et lundi) - Entrée libre
au syndicat potentiel,
13 rue des couples 67000 Strasbourg
Tél. 03 88 37 08 72
Sur une proposition d'Antoine Lejolivet
Avec le soutien de la Ville de Strasbourg, du Conseil général du Bas Rhin, de la DRAC Alsace, de Moxie Studios et de Culture Ireland
The Insides of Things
L’intérieur des choses
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
- 70th saying of Jesus from The Gospel of Thomas
As both an installation and as a related body of work, The Insides of Things explores and investigates the expectations of relationships between interior and exterior realms. Taking its name from the title of one of the individual pieces in the show, the work is a natural continuation from a previous artistic dialogue on the increasing intimacy between biological and technological systems: When we inevitably get to the point when our bodies play host to nanotechnological instruments scouring our bloodstreams, or syncing our internally stored files with those stored in ‘cloud computing,’ how do we define or describe our ‘interior’ state? How do we define it now?
In some of the works, the surface of wood, like skin, shows the scars-as-stories of time and events- age, abuse, care and attention. But unlike a log or timber, cutting a body in half doesn’t just give you two pieces of wood; a body is a holon: a thing which is an entity complete in itself which, although made of smaller parts like molecules and cells, cannot be reduced to those smaller parts... this thing exhibits emergent traits which do not exist in the parts. The sum is, truly, greater than the whole, and if we change our perspective or point of view even slightly, what we are then are able to see can be surprising.
Is human-being, or any consciousness, simply a set of biological responses, is it a social construct, or perhaps a pattern of information? And if consciousness is a pattern of information, as ineffable or invisible as those atomic machines, what is the relevance of what we see when we slice and split and pry apart a thing, when we pull back the arbitrary curtain that separates and delineates what is within from what is without? These are the questions about which this work encourages debate.
KBK
K Bear Koss is an artist and writer who has worked with community-based non-profit organisations and arts projects in several different countries over the past ten years. Koss came to Ireland from Tucson, Arizona in 2004 to complete an MFA in Virtual Realities at NCAD, and has been exhibiting and working from Dublin ever since. He is currently engaged in PhD research.
Site de K. Bear Koss
A l’heure des nanotechnologies et des mondes virtuels, les représentations que nous avons de notre propre intériorité se modifient... Etre humain se définit-il tout simplement par un ensemble de réactions biologiques, par une construction sociale, ou par un modèle informationnel? Le plasticien américain K. Bear Koss questionne par son travail la pertinence des connaissances acquises par l’observation de la matière, et de nos capacité variables de saisir ou d’imaginer cet état obscur de l’intérieur des choses...
Vernissage le jeudi 30 septembre 2010 à partir de 18h
Exposition du 30 au 09 octobre 2010
de 15h à 19h (sauf dim. et lundi) - Entrée libre
au syndicat potentiel,
13 rue des couples 67000 Strasbourg
Tél. 03 88 37 08 72
Sur une proposition d'Antoine Lejolivet
Avec le soutien de la Ville de Strasbourg, du Conseil général du Bas Rhin, de la DRAC Alsace, de Moxie Studios et de Culture Ireland
The Insides of Things
L’intérieur des choses
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
- 70th saying of Jesus from The Gospel of Thomas
As both an installation and as a related body of work, The Insides of Things explores and investigates the expectations of relationships between interior and exterior realms. Taking its name from the title of one of the individual pieces in the show, the work is a natural continuation from a previous artistic dialogue on the increasing intimacy between biological and technological systems: When we inevitably get to the point when our bodies play host to nanotechnological instruments scouring our bloodstreams, or syncing our internally stored files with those stored in ‘cloud computing,’ how do we define or describe our ‘interior’ state? How do we define it now?
In some of the works, the surface of wood, like skin, shows the scars-as-stories of time and events- age, abuse, care and attention. But unlike a log or timber, cutting a body in half doesn’t just give you two pieces of wood; a body is a holon: a thing which is an entity complete in itself which, although made of smaller parts like molecules and cells, cannot be reduced to those smaller parts... this thing exhibits emergent traits which do not exist in the parts. The sum is, truly, greater than the whole, and if we change our perspective or point of view even slightly, what we are then are able to see can be surprising.
Is human-being, or any consciousness, simply a set of biological responses, is it a social construct, or perhaps a pattern of information? And if consciousness is a pattern of information, as ineffable or invisible as those atomic machines, what is the relevance of what we see when we slice and split and pry apart a thing, when we pull back the arbitrary curtain that separates and delineates what is within from what is without? These are the questions about which this work encourages debate.
KBK
K Bear Koss is an artist and writer who has worked with community-based non-profit organisations and arts projects in several different countries over the past ten years. Koss came to Ireland from Tucson, Arizona in 2004 to complete an MFA in Virtual Realities at NCAD, and has been exhibiting and working from Dublin ever since. He is currently engaged in PhD research.
Site de K. Bear Koss
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