Anicka Yi “Biologizing the Machine” “Terra Incognita” “Tentacular Trouble” Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition

Anicka Yi, Biologizing the Machine - Terra Incognita, Biennale Art Venice

Anicka Yi Conceptual artist Anicka Yi was born in South Korea in 1971.

She lives and works in New York.

His work “Biologizing the Machine (Terra Incognita)”, exhibited in the central pavilion of the Giardini at the Venice Art Biennale 2019, is composed of large suspended and... living panels. Or almost.

In each of these panels, between two transparent acrylic sheets, an ecosystem of bacteria and microalgae is installed called Winogradsky, named after the Russian microbiologist Sergei Winogradsky.

The microalgae are stimulated by the scents emitted by the bacteria enclosed with them in the panels.

The growth of all these elements depends on light, temperature and humidity.

Anicka Yi, Biologizing the Machine - Tentacular Trouble, Biennale Art Venice

Anicka Yi, Tentacular Trouble Paintings whose appearance will therefore vary according to all these factors, in a “restless symbiosis” as Anicka Yi specifies, some benefiting at first sight from the other, but unpredictable chaos is always possible.

She also presents at the Arsenal another series, “Biologizing the Machine”, but this time “Tentacular Trouble” instead of “Terra Incognita”.

In one of the great halls of the Arsenal, incandescent biomorphic sculptures hang over craters filled with water.

Sculptures that want to be shapeless organisms, insect eggs, human organs, abnormal cells...