At the Biocultural Borderland: The Unfolding of Multispecies Encounters in Latin American Bioart

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse two instances of bioart, namely, Allan Jeffs’ installation Ex+sistencia and Luciana Paoletti’s photographs Retratos, from the post-humanist perspective of multispecies encounters. According to Mitchell (2010), bioart engages artistic and scientific procedures bringing about hybrid works that explore a concept or that seek to involve the spectator in biotechnological procedures to promote the debate on the problematic of technology. Based on that theoretical framework I study how bioart experiments with living microorganisms found in human bodies and visual media to explore the co-habiting of humans and bacteria in our own bodies, thus deconstructing dominant ideas on human nature and the human body.

Keywords

• bioart
• multispecies
• biocultural borderland
• Allan Jeffs
• Luciana Paoletti