ed. by Mihnea Mircan and Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei ; texts by Susanne Kriemann, Susan Schuppli, Georges Didi-Huberman, Christopher Witmore ...[et al.]
- Author(s)
- Susanne Kriemann, Susan Schuppli, Georges Didi-Huberman, Christopher Witmore, ...[et al.]
- Editor(s)
- Mihnea Mircan, Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
- Publication
- Milan : Mousse Publishing, 2015
- Scope
- 456 Pages, illustrated, 21 cm.
- ISBN
- 9788867491162
A 2010 archeological study found that the prehistoric Gwion Gwion paintings in Australia, whose chromatic vividness contrasts with their age and their exposure to sun and rain, are inhabited by “living pigments.” A symbiotic biofilm of red cyanobacteria and black fungi sustains a process of permanent self-painting, while also etching the pictures deeper into the quartz wall. The Gwion Gwion are examined as an allegorical metabolism that generates new articulations of “art” and “life,” contamination and purity, prehistory and modernity, bacterial and human colonies, lost knowledge and scientific advancement—collaborative relations between antonyms, altered schemas of “origin” and “identity.”
- Keywords
- mycelia - fungi , art history , anthropocene , bacteria
- Remarks
- Incl. notes, biographies.
