Open Art and Bio Art: Maurice Benayoun and Eduardo Kac at Centre des arts d'Enghien-les-Bains
For more than ten years, the Centre des arts d'Enghien-les-Bains has been a platform for interdisciplinary art, featuring notable figures such as Maurice Benayoun and Eduardo Kac. Benayoun's initiative, Open Art, advocates for a 'transactional aesthetic' and culminated in the 'Out of the Dump' exhibition in May 2011, showcasing 15 pieces derived from his project The Dump (www.the-dump.net). In 2009, a Gdansk exhibition highlighted nine artists influenced by the blog, with Benayoun capturing their creations as 'Instances de Gdansk.' Brazilian Bio Art artist Kac presented transgenetic pieces, including 'Genesis,' 'Alba,' 'Biotopes,' and 'Edunia' in 2011, challenging modern belief systems. The discussion incorporates ideas from theorists Raymond Bellour, Bernard Stiegler, and Nicolas Bourriaud.
Key facts
- Centre des arts d'Enghien-les-Bains has programmed interdisciplinary arts-sciences-technology for over a decade.
- Maurice Benayoun proposed the concept of Open Art, inspired by Open Source.
- Benayoun's project The Dump is a blog of sketches and unrealized projects open for appropriation.
- Exhibition 'Out of the Dump' took place at the centre in May 2011.
- A cycle of exchange included an exhibition in Gdansk, Poland in 2009.
- Benayoun argues that technology's main impact is 'virtuality' as condition for plasticity of the real.
- Eduardo Kac creates transgenetic Bio Art, manipulating living organisms.
- Kac's 'Edunia' is a hybrid between the artist and a petunia, expressing his DNA in petals.
- 'Edunia' was developed between 2003 and 2008 and exhibited at the centre in 2011.
- Kac's work questions belief systems shaped by technoscientific materialism and science fiction.
Entities
Artists
- Maurice Benayoun
- Eduardo Kac
- Peter Weibel
- Christa Sommerer
- Laurent Mignonneau
- Richard Pell
- J. G. Ballard
- Philip K. Dick
- Nicolas Bourriaud
- Raymond Bellour
- Bernard Stiegler
- Annick Bureaud
- Dominique Moulon
Institutions
- Centre des arts d'Enghien-les-Bains
- Neue Galerie
- Eyebeam
- Mozilla Foundation
- ZKM Karlsruhe
- Center for PostNatural History
- Gaîté Lyrique
- art press 2
- Scala
- Fyp
Locations
- Enghien-les-Bains
- France
- Gdansk
- Poland
- New York
- United States
- Karlsruhe
- Germany
- Pittsburgh
Sources
- artpress —