Eduardo Kac: Life, Light & Language

Enghien-les-Bains Art Center, France (January 21 to April 10, 2011)

Catalogue information

Photos: Axel Heise (unless otherwise noticed).

Natural History of the Enigma

The central work in the "Natural History of the Enigma" series is a plantimal, a new life form Kac created and that he calls "Edunia", a genetically-engineered flower that is a hybrid of Kac and Petunia. The Edunia expresses Kac's DNA exclusively the red veins of the flower. The gene Kac selected is responsible for the identification of foreign bodies. In this work, it is precisely that which identifies and rejects the other that the artist integrates into the other, thus creating a new kind of self that is partially flower and partially human. Developed between 2003 and 2008, and first exhibited from April 17 to June 21, 2009 at the Weisman Art Museum, in Minneapolis, "Natural History of the Enigma" also encompasses a large-scale public sculpture, a print suite, photographs, and other works.

Eduardo Kac, Natural History of the Enigma, transgenic flower with artist's own DNA expressed in the red veins, 2003/2008.

Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.


Eduardo Kac, "Edunia Seed Pack Studies" (from the Natural History of the Enigma series), 22 x 30" (55.88 x 76.2 cm) each, lithographs, 2006. Edition of 15.

Collection Virgile Novarina, Paris.

Collection Monique Pignet, Paris.


Eduardo Kac, Edunia Seed Packs (from the Natural History of the Enigma series), hand-made paper objects with Edunia seeds and magnets, 4 x 8 inches (10.16 x 20.32 cm) each, 2009.

Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.


Lagoglyphs

The Lagoglyphs are a series of artworks in different media in which Eduardo Kac creates a visual language and form of writing that he describes as "rabbitographic". The series references Kac's project GFP Bunny (2000)—also known as Alba, the green bunny—a genetically modified rabbit that glows fluorescent green under certain light conditions. The Lagoglyphs are pictograms, visual symbols composed of two units (one green, one black) that each evoke Alba through infinite variations.

Eduardo Kac, Lagoglyphs : The Lepus Constellation Suite (2009)
5 engraved and painted steel discs (20 inches diameter each) with lagoglyphic interstellar messages transmitted to the Lepus Constellation on March 13, 2009 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Lagoglyphs : The Lepus Constellation Suite (2009) explores the notion that certain life forms, such as a green rabbit, are "alien" to us. The project literally communicates a sign system to the "alien" other. The lagoglyphic "message" inscribed on each disk has been transmitted to the Lepus Constellation (the Gamma Leporis starbelow Orion) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on March 13, 2009 via satellite broadcasting equipment and a parabolic dish antenna. Kac quite literally connects sign systems across the universe: the lagoglyphic rabbit meets the lepus (Latin for hare) constellation. The constellation is 29 light years away from Earth, which means that Kac's messages would arrive in the year 2038.

Disc #1 is in the collection of Alfredo Herzog da Silva, São Paulo.

Disc #5 is in the collection of Virgile Novarina, Paris.


Eduardo Kac, Lagoglyphs : The Bunny Variations (2007)
12 silkscreen prints, 15.7 x 21.2 inches each.
Edition of 50.

The silkscreens highlight calligraphic aspects of the lagoglyphs in sequential variations. The glyphs are variable, textured gestures that create a visual code for an “other” that is mutable. The Lagoglyphs are the opposite of language. While in any linguistic system a fixed set of signs enables infinite meaning, in the Lagoglyph series the meaning is given (Alba) while the signs are infinite.

Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.


BACK/RIGHT
Eduardo Kac, Lagoglyphs: Animation I (2009)
Real-time parametric animation, color, silent, loopless (no fixed duration).

FRONT/LEFT
Eduardo Kac, Lagoglyphs: Lagoogleglyph I (2009)
Google Earth work composed of Lagoglyph installed on the roof of Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro, approx. 26 x 56 ft; and custom-ordered WorldView2 satellite photograph.

Lagoogleglyph (2009) is a distributed, global artwork that inscribes lagoglyphs into the environment and makes them visible to the world. In its first manifestation Lagoogleglyph consists of a pixelated lagoglyph, referencing a rabbit head, inscribed on the roof of the Oi Futuro building and specifically made by Kac for the eye of a satellite used by Google. The artist hired the same satellite used by Google and produced a photograph identical to the kind used by Google Earth. Lagoogleglyph is potentially visible to anyone on the planet via Google's geographic search engine.
SEE IT IN GOOGLE EARTH.

 

Eduardo Kac, Lagoglyphs: Animation I (2009)
Real-time parametric animation, color, silent, loopless (no fixed duration).

The real-time computer animations of the lagoglyphs, continuously flowing and reconfiguring themselves in new streams, place emphasis on the generative mutability of writing.

Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.


Eduardo Kac, Lagoglyphs: The Volcano Paintings, ink on canvas, 44 x 44 in (100 x 100 cm) each, 2010.

In unison with millions of people around the world, during the third week of April 2010 I experienced a forceful global disruption of plans and expectations caused by the Icelandic volcano eruption. The widespread shutdown of airspace jeopardized personal travel and shipment of goods to and from Europe, resulting in massive chaos and losses of billions of Euros. I was stranded overseas and was forced to reorganize my life around the unpredictable patterns of the drifting Icelandic volcanic ash. It was a powerful experience to read reports that the volcano would go on for two years while not knowing how long I would stay marooned. Suddenly, the illusion of being in control of your life vanished. The Eyjafjallajokull volcano had been dormant for nearly two centuries before becoming active again in the late evening of March 20, 2010. Eventually the ash dispersal subsided but the experience left indelible impressions. I created the suite “Lagoglyph: The Volcano Paintings”--in which I submit my Lagoglyphs to an “eruption”--to celebrate this experience. (EK)

Courtesy Black Box Gallery, Copenhagen.


Essay Concerning Human Understanding

"Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1994) promotes a dialogue between a bird and plant through the network. In one location the bird sings at will. At another, remote, location, the plant senses the bird's song and responds. The plant's electrical fluctuation is sensed and converted into sounds that travel back to the bird's cage.


Teleporting An Unknown State

" Teleporting An Unknown State" (1994) creates the experience of the Internet as a life-supporting system. In a very dark room a pedestal with earth serves as a nursery for a living plant. Through a video projector suspended above and facing the pedestal, remote participants send light from the sky of remote cities via the Internet to enable this plant to photosynthesize and grow in total darkness.

Eduardo Kac, Teleporting an Unknwon State, 1994, plant, Internet, wood, webcam, video projector.

oslo

Eduardo Kac, Teleporting an Unknwon State, 1994, plant, Internet, wood, webcam, video projector (web interface).

chicago

Eduardo Kac, Teleporting an Unknwon State, 1994, plant, Internet, wood, webcam, video projector (iPhone interface; also available for Android).
Photos: Wonbin Yang


Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries (2006)

Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries is a series of works that Kac describes as "biotopes", art objects that are living organisms. The biotopes are ecologies of thousands of microorganisms framed in a transparent casing with earth, water, and other materials. Together, the individual life forms constitute an artwork that is an ecology and living system, with behaviors that express themselves in a visual slow-motion animation. Kac orchestrates the biotopes' metabolism through combining them with nutrient-rich media and controlling the energy they receive in order to keep them alive. Colors and geometric visual forms are responses to the external environment, such as temperature and light, and the internal metabolism of the biotope.

 

from.above

Apsides (2006)
Biotope, 19 X 23 inches, 2006.
Collection Valerio Ferrari, Paris


Kac Web