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ROUNDTABLE

Atlas Making

As a group of students visited the AKH radiology department the day before the round table, the impressions of that visit were exchanged and discussed. Issues were the characteristics, architecture, ambiance,  management and structure of the hospital organism or system. It was about the scope of action in such a system, with respect to necessities, responsibilities and rules, about hierarchy and the truth and half-life period of knowledge. About the transdisciplinarity you already need in one discipline and about the motivation for cooperating. We adopted the metaphor of a spiderweb, which Franz Kainberger  introduced  to demonstrate an idea of the role art could play in the hospital system. As I understood the idea, the medical system  uses the spider threads but does not know much about the zones in between. Art could enter and explore the “in between.”
But where is the entrance, how to find it? As an observer, as an under-cover agent, as an actor or performer, as a designer, as a communication facilitator? It was agreed that ideas how to enter the ''in between zone'' should be developed until 4th November and exchanged at the round table. The discussion went on with reflections about complex systems in general and about their stability and proper functioning.
 
Then Denise Schellmann, Maria Trabulo and Chin Tsao, three of the newcomers introduced themselves, their background and work.
 
Denise made a PhD in pharmacology and investigated a cancer inhibiting agent deriving from Combretum caffrum, the Eastern Cape South African Bushwillow tree. The agent extracted from the tree is not stable in the human body. She managed to develop a stable variety. The stable agent can be crystallized which results in astonishing formations. Denise is also a painter and sees similarities between the cristallisation process and the process of painting.
 
Maria comes from Portugal, to be more precise from Porto. She expressed her awareness of Portugals history and changing role on the world scene and of the present state of the country. Her installations are site specific -  developing from the surroundings. In Camouflage - one of her presented works - she offers owners of empty shops to camouflage the windows. Many of her projects are collaborative.
 
Chin Tsao is from Taiwan. She read a text circulating through mater, transformation and structure and introduced some of her artworks. One had the  title  After Depart From Conciousness (wax sculptures) - a green-haired figurine and organ like structures, combined with hexagonal forms. For Microbe Farm of the Air she cultivated microorganisms on fragile looking polyester structures which are placed in test tubes hanging in the air.

ROUNDTABLE
October 21, 2014, 09:30h