Curator

Dr Alicia King

Artists

ART ORIENTÉ OBJET (MARION LAVAL-JEANTET AND BENOIT MANGIN)

ORON CATTS & IONAT ZURR

IAN HAIG

NADEGE PHILLIPE-JANON

MICHAELA GLEAVE

THOMAS THWAITES,

LU YANG

Date: 17-Jun-2017 – 15-Apr-2018

Location: Contemporary Art Tasmania

“I’m interested in the social impact of technology and the way it is incorporated into our collective vision under the premise of being innately symbiotic to maintaining human life,” says curator Alicia King. “The intent of the show isn’t to either glorify or condemn the use of technologies addressed in the works – it’s really exploring a spectrum of approaches to life from the machinic to the visceral – at times challenging, absurd, and insightful.” Curator Dr Alicia King

Putting forward the artist as contemporary alchemist, the selected works invite audiences to channel experiences beyond our accessible human and non-human worlds. They include:

A digital print of ‘Victimless Leather’ by internationally renowned biological artists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr from the collaborative art-science research centre SymbioticA.

A video work by media artist Lu Yang exploring consciousness and the human brain through the re-envisaging of the artist as a digitised and asexual future humanoid being. Yang’s work recently represented China at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

A new work by UK based artist Thomas Thwaites, known for his Channel 4 series From Scratch, exploring how humans may augment themselves in the future through prostheses created to help him live with another species – a goat herd in the Swiss Alps.

A video work by French bioart pioneers Art Orienté Objet, of their experimental performance transfusing horse blood into an artist’s bloodstream. The work was awarded the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica prize.

Emerging Tasmanian artist Nadege Philippe-Janon, working with mentor Dr Bill Hart, creating a new installation-based work focused on expanding microcosms and fictitious biologies.

Sydney-based Michaela Gleave prints data relating to one star per minute of stars as they appear over the horizon for the location of the viewer, in collaboration with astronomer, Michael Fitzgerald.

Melbourne-based Ian Haig‘s low-fi visceral experiments play upon ideas of body horror to investigate perspectives of the body in contemporary and popular culture.

Salamanca Arts Centre is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, and also through Arts Tasmania and the Hobart City Council. New Alchemists received support through Contemporary Art Tasmania’s Exhibition Development Fund.