Mochvara Gallery

multimedia bio-installation 
@ Pogon Jedinstvo (small hall), Trnjanski nasip bb, Zagreb 

exhibition opening and artist talk: Monday, 27.10.2014, 20:00h 
The exhibition is open from October 28th to October 30th, from 17:00h to 20:00h. 
free entrance 

Myconnect, a multimedia bio-installation that emerged as an aspiration to enable human beings to transgresses their own species and connect with them on perceptive and psychological level. In the Myconnect capsule, the nervous system of the person is integrated into a human interface-mycelium feedback loop via heartbeat. Mycelium’s oscillations are produced by electrical resistance and correspond to the incoming heartbeat in a temporal offset thus creating a hybrid sensation which is transferred back to the human body via sound, light and tactile sensory impulses. By entering the installation one is in becoming with the otherness, another multiplicity – the fungal mycelium – while the symbiotically transferred sensory experience indicates the notion of the dependence of perceivable reality on the sensory impulses in the environment and the integration of human beings in the multichannel network which is our habitat. As a symbiotic interspecies connector that creates the experience of symbiotic interdependence, Myconnect questions the anthropocentric, arbitrary and bio-politically driven division of nature-human-technology. The result of entering into Myconnect is a purposeful separation of the body from the environment in order to make the symbiotic relationship visible, audible and haptic for the visitor: a total sensory immersion of the body in the capsule which is isolated in the same way as microbiological cultures are isolated in a laboratory. 

Saša Spačal is a media artist based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, who is currently working at the intersection of bioart, media art and real-time interactive visualization. Her installations have been presented at numerous international exhibitions and festivals such as: International Triennial of New Media Art 2014, Beijing; Haip Festival, Ljubljana; Enter 5: Datapolis, Prague; AmberFest’11: Next Ecology, Istanbul; De:sonanz 2012, Skopje; Device_art 4.012, Zagreb; Device_art 4.013, Prague; Enter 6: Biopolis, Prague, MFRU – KIBLIX 2013: When worlds collide, Maribor; Sculpture Today: Performative Bodies and Spaces, Celje. In collaboration with various art producers such as Kapelica Gallery, Multimedia Center Kibla and Ljudmila - Art and Science Laboratory, she is developing media installations and other interfaces by connecting technological and biological organisms. Her work focuses primarily on the posthuman period, when human beings exist and act as one of many elements in the ecosystem and not as sovereigns. Therefore abandoning the Cartesian system of classification and accepting the fact that the field of technology has grown and expanded resulting in hybrid phenomena inscribed in mechanical, digital and organic logic. 

www.agapea.si 

Dr. Mirjan Švagelj, doctor of biomedicine currently working for a biotech research and development company. He finished his doctoral studies in Biomedicine at the University of Ljubljana in the field of medicinal mushrooms. Švagelj has attended several international conferences and workshops in the field of biotechnology, medicine, chemical engineering and published more than 15 original papers. In the context of art he has collaborated on the project Nomadology with Polona Tratnik and has been part of Mycophone_genus and Myconnect project since 2012 together with Saša Spačal and Anil Podgornik. 

Anil Podgornik, DIY enthusiast with a big talent for electronics, mechanics and physics. Since 2012 he has been a part of Mycophone_genus and Myconnect project.