How can we get to know more-than-human worlds better? Which senses can help us with that, and how do we train them? Or do we need additional sensors and perhaps even new (body) languages to truly connect and experience kinship?
For a long time, humans assumed that language made them unique and superior. But paradoxically, thanks in part to technology, more and more complex communication systems between non-human animals, plants and the earth appear to us. And it is high time that we learn to listen to them.
Sensing Otherness | Navigating the more-than-human world zooms in on how artists and designers, working closely with scientists, explore these complex conversations between the most diverse living species and ecosystems. And in doing this it remarkably turns out that centuries-old indigenous mythology and the most advanced digital sensors and artificial intelligences seem to reinforce each other. They expand our possibilities to acoustically witness life in the remotest corners of the earth and the deepest depths of the oceans. And it is up to us to make sense of them. At the same time, these systems make us even more aware of the far-reaching, often poisonous and destructive impact humans have on land, air and water.
Not only the two BAD Award winning teams of 2024, but also the eight other artists gathered in Sensing Otherness, show how the more than human world is getting closer. So come and train your senses or put your ear to the ground at MU this winter.
Participating artists are
affect lab | Waiting for Cows
Carla Alcalà Badias & Laura Villaneuva (BAD AWARD 24) | Microbial Prophetesses
Disnovation.org | The Solar Share & Eating the Sun
Emilia Tapprest & Samar Khan (BAD AWARD 24) | Ecotonal Beings
Herwig Illegems | Head to Head
Jan van der IJken | Planktonium
Marit Shalem | Milk
Saša Spačal |Terra Xenobiotica
Xandra van der Eijk | Mother of Pearl
Zuika Owada | The Eyes Tell You The Truth
BAD Award exhibition 24/25
Sensing Otherness | Navigating the more-than-human world
Friday 13 December 2024
Doors open: 7.30 PM
Start: 8 PM
Full program will follow soon.
About the BAD Award
The yearly Bio Art & Design (BAD) Award aims to stimulate emerging designers and artists to delve into the world of bio art and design, and produce new multidisciplinary work. This can encompass numerous fields - from sustainability, food and health, to biotechnology, horticulture, and agriculture, from new materials to ethics and from molecules to the universe and every bio entity in-between, natural and synthetic.
In 2024, the BAD Award is made possible by a collaborative consortium of Noord-Brabant based cultural partners: BioArt Laboratories, Dutch Design Foundation, MU Hybrid Art House and Next Nature Museum.
