FIFTY PERCENT HUMAN – Sonja Bäumel

By Sonja Bäumel
I.s.m Birgit Nemec, Cocky Eek, Hauke Smidt
Orangerie, 8 – 16 October 2016

We, humans, have recently come to understanding that we have twice as many bacterial cells than human cells, living both in and on our bodies. Besides this abstract knowledge, what does this mean for our self-recognition, for our concepts of autonomy and for the borders of our self? If fifty percent of the cells that constitute our body are not human but microbial, how could we get in touch with our nonhuman co-habitants?

Fifty Percent Human creates an in-between space, addressing uncertainties, ambiguities and imagination linked to the microbial paradigm shift both on an aesthetic and on an epistemological level. The project’s installation presents a damp environment, filled thick with enlarged transparent and liquid membrane-bound microbial cells, collectively swimming, lying or floating – an intersecting multi-species landscape to explore. Is it possible that we may sense a language to encounter with non-verbal organisms through touch? To experience and thus better understand inter-organismic communication means taking care of the microcosm and thus ultimately means taking care of ourselves.

hhttp://www.sonjabaeumel.at/works/bacteria/ten-percent-

Opening: Saturday, 8^thof Oct at 14:00 – 18:00

Exhibition opening hours:

Sunday, 9^thof Oct from 11:00 – 18:00

Monday, 10^th – Friday 14th of Oct from 11:00 – 17:00

Thursday, 13^thof Oct from 11:00 – 19:00 interactive secession from 17:00 – 19:00

Saturday, 15^thof Oct from 11:00 – 18:00
Sunday, 16^th of Octfrom 11:00 – 18:00, Finissage at 14:00