The Science and Society program at NCBS has partnered with the bangaloResident program of the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan to host Simona Koch, a mixed media artist from Germany.

As part of her artist residency at NCBS, Simona has worked on a 5-week project where she has interacted with and interviewed several scientists on our campus and connected it with her experience of the city of Bangalore.

In interacting with biologists, and trying to make sense of her experience of the city - Simona draws on both Herbert Spencer's (1851) idea of the social organism with the features of organs, growth and disappearance (or death) and William Morton Wheeler's (1910) notion of the superorganism in relation to his work with ants.

Simona has brought these ideas and experiences together in an installation that she will present on the campus at NCBS (in the lobby outside LH2) on August 13th.  Drawing on her previous work with maps and borders, the city of Bengaluru is envisioned here as a 'superorganism'.  Her video installation draws from the idea of cell growth and division, along with the idea of cells being in perpetual motion.  She overlays this video, with 6 historic maps of the city of Bengaluru, which are animated with pencil drawings.

In addition to the visual representation of the city as superorganism in her video installation, she has created a text with images (presented in the form of a book) describing the city as a superorganism, relying on biological descriptions gleaned from her conversations with scientists.

Her exhibit will also display drawings and collages made on pages biology and geology books, making a visual connection with the organic world of the city as superorganism.  A knotted object, showing the evolution of the organism is also part of the installation.

Installation: SUPERORGANISM - #1 Bengaluru

Venue: Lobby (outside LH2), Eastern Laboratories, NCBS Campus

Time: 2-7pm, Thu Aug 13, 2015

For more information on Simona's work:

www.en-bloc.de

www.abiotismus.de

About bangaloREsidency:

http://www.goethe.de/ins/in/en/bag/uun/krr/bangaloresidency2015/20535878...