OFLUXO

Nobody was particularly surprised when microscopic plastic particles were recently discovered in human blood[1]. Since geologists classified a new type of stone – plastiglomerate (rock that contains natural sediments conjoined by molten plastic) – it was just a matter of time until we face an objective proof of direct engagement of this artificial material with our bodies. Nothing has changed from the phenomenological perspective – our bodies are still what they used to be, but the presence of the “unwelcomed guest” we created by ourselves that changes our cells in an unpredictable manner has disturbed us in our comfort zones. Well, for a while, at least. The plastiglomerate mentioned earlier has become a geological indicator of human presence in planetary history. Similarly, our bodies have become logbooks with entries describing our activities. We are changing the nature around us to our advantage in the same way as we are changing the nature within our bodies.


Our veins with microplastics drifting inside are not the only expression of the transforming concept of body. The modifications take place at many different levels including our genetics. These phenomena bring forward questions about what we generally think of “the nature within us”. The natural entwines with artificial products of our activities that become part of us. We are the daughters and sons of the nature and we have departed from the nature, even at physical level. The “natural element within us” has already been convoluted by the artificial agent that brings us and our bodies into a state of strange distinction.    


This particular hybrid or transitory identity is amply elaborated in the works of the Šimon Chovan’s solo exhibition titled Transit Cell Song. Exhausted nature gives off its last breath from behind a screen; monumental sculptures of plants with features of living organisms covered with earth, defending against the unknown or exploring themselves; screens with protruding cables delivering flourishing plant life to the surface; futuristic dresses from the collection Breath! (2018) evoking human circulatory system made by Eva Husárová from plastic tubes gnawed by mice – these are the works of art incorporating natural, artificial and technological agents whose roles constantly change and rearrange, thus creating new connections.       


Biographies:


Šimon Chovan (born in 1994) is a designer and visual artist. His disruptive poetics connecting product design, pop-culture, technologies and natural materials is simultaneously deceptive and reflective. It is based on the stimulation of our emotional responses by intentional presentation and anthropomorphism of extra-human world that is being evoked. Yet, Chovan does not forcefully equip the non-human agents with human features. He rather accentuates the mutual attributes. He is using the aesthetics of old technologies and science fiction as an aesthetic link by which he gets back to the techno-optimistic concepts and ingenuousness of the digital progress of the 1990s and the early 2000s. He awakens these visual references and confronts them with present times in which the fictional visions of future become strikingly real. Šimon Chovan graduated at Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava in 2019 with his diploma thesis titled Speculative Fiction as a Method. He is currently preparing for his MA studies at Fine Arts department of Sandberg Instituut.

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[1] Damian Carrington: Microplastics found in human blood for first time. In: The Guardian, online: 24. 3. 2022