Axis Interactive Installation part of Terras Lux Project at Not for Sale Gallery, London, 2023.
Introducing Unity of Nature, a captivating new interview series that delves into the cutting edge of nature-inspired art and design. Hosted by acclaimed design scientist Dr. Melissa Sterry, and sponsored by bio-innovation consultancy Bioratorium®, this series spotlights both emerging and established creative talents that are collaborating with living organisms like fungi, lichen, algae and trees to craft groundbreaking works that blur the lines between art, science, and sustainability. Each interview offers a fascinating glimpse into how nature can inspire bold, innovative solutions to the great environmental and social challenges of our time. Welcome to a world where art and design comes alive.
Q&A with Audrey Rangel Aguirre
We’re thrilled to launch Unity of Nature with an exclusive interview featuring Audrey Rangel Aguirre, an interdisciplinary Mexican artist based in England. In this first interview of the series, hosted by design scientist Dr. Melissa Sterry, we explore Audrey’s visionary work at the intersection of art and science. Through her groundbreaking project Terras Lux, Audrey delves into the energetic connections between microbial ecosystems in soil and the human body, seeking to harmonise all beings through reciprocity. Join us as we dive into her speculative future scenarios, where artistic intuition meets the politics and poetics of contemporary art practice.
YOUR ART INVOLVES LIVING ORGANISMS, WHICH INTRODUCES AN ELEMENT OF UNPREDICTABILITY. HOW DO YOU EMBRACE OR MANAGE THE UNCONTROLLABLE ASPECTS OF NATURE IN YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS?
Unpredictability is the core of any practice that focuses on living organisms. For me, unpredictability is the force that drives knowledge. Unpredictability means that I don’t know how an experiment or a project will evolve, as the living organisms live by their own rules and laws. We can’t know how a certain experiment will develop, or in which ways the living organisms will grow… so it’s all about growing together with them. As the organisms evolve in a project, we as humans grow with them, in the sense that we learn from them about life. Unpredictability is a window from which we can see how life and the universe change and evolve. It’s the start of understanding on how we are all related to each other, as we are all living organisms. Unpredictability can be addressed as a process in the life of living organisms, but is also a philosophical departure, like a way of living and a way to approach this life. It is an important key that empowers creativity at all scales.
WHAT FIRST INSPIRED YOU TO INCORPORATE LIVING ORGANISMS INTO YOUR ART, AND HOW HAS YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF BIOLOGY SHAPED YOUR ARTISTIC APPROACH?
Everything started when I was researching about energy. I was trying to find a connection in the energetical flux that crosses the micro, human and macro scale. While researching soil microbes I came across organisms that produce bioelectricity and it was really a revelation. I wanted to know more about how living organisms on a scale so tiny that we can’t perceive it play a crucial role on Earth, and what their processes are. I became obsessed with all living organisms related to soil. I think soil is a huge macroorganism that embraces the planet, is full of secrets, and it may hold some of the sustainable energy resources that will be key in the future for the conviviality between living organisms and humans.
HOW DO YOU ENSURE THE ETHICAL TREATMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY OF THE ORGANISMS YOU WORK WITH, AND DOES THIS CONCERN AFFECT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTION YOU TAKE?
This is crucial when your practice is based on the processes of living organisms, you must let ethics and principles rule your actions and avoid “using” living organisms to gain achievements. This means basing my practice on observing the organisms and not modifying them. I don’t think I have the right to modify anything that nature produced millions of years ago. What we observe in nature is the result of processes that took many millennia to evolve, so who am I to come now, proclaiming the superiority of humans, and trying to modify at micro or macro levels? This is why I don’t support synthetic biology. I have lost a lot of opportunities in the professional field as an artist and researcher because I prefer to be true to my principles. My practice and research carefully respects nature and its laws.
WORKING WITH LIVING MATERIALS MUST INVOLVE A DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF TIME, GROWTH, AND DECAY. HOW DO THESE PROCESSES INFLUENCE THE THEMES AND CONCEPTS IN YOUR WORK?
For me, the processes of time, growth and decay are a philosophical dimension that connects us with the sense of “immediacy” that prevails in life. These processes situate me on the immediate moment of “now”. That is in the existential level, because the biological sense and the philosophical aspects of matter converge. In our minds and our beings, the disciplines are not separated, the human brain can absorb knowledge and process it without making differences between biology, physics and spirituality. In our minds we perceive time, growth and decay as us being unified with the universe and, thus being part of its flux. This existential aspect of the biological processes on matter is present in all my practice. Life’s growth and decay are dots in a constellation that represent different points in space and time.
HOW DO YOU BALANCE THE AESTHETIC GOALS OF YOUR PIECES WITH THE PRACTICAL NEEDS OF THE ORGANISMS? ARE THERE COMPROMISES YOU’VE HAD TO MAKE AND IF SO WHAT?
My approach when co-creating with living organisms is to try not to disturb them in their natural ecosystems.
“If I examine a small piece of moss or soil from the forest, I try to bring it back to where it came from. The same happens with microbes that I grow in petri dishes. I am just a being that tries to amplify their natural existence by showing it to others, in this case, the public.”
DOES WORKING WITH LIVING ENTITIES CREATE A DIFFERENT EMOTIONAL OR SPIRITUAL CONNECTION WITH YOUR ART COMPARED TO MORE TRADITIONAL MEDIUMS LIKE PAINT OR CLAY?
Yes, there is emotional connection to the living organisms I work with, through the connection with them I can see the life processes and it is always amazing and life changing. Discovering the overwhelming truths of life triggers our spiritual connection with life in itself – elevating the condition of humanity to higher levels, through the creativity in a collaboration with living organisms. Consciousness through creativity is elevating us to spirituality.
COLLABORATION IS ESSENTIAL TO YOUR PROCESS – NOT JUST WITH THE LIVING ORGANISMS BUT WITH SCIENTISTS, SUCH AS BIOLOGISTS. COULD YOU SHARE MORE ABOUT HOW THESE INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS SHAPE YOUR WORK?
I started researching in the field of arts, but at one point I couldn’t go further with my research projects because of my limitations on topics that belong to other disciplines. This is why I decided to reach out to other professionals in diverse fields. At the beginning it was mere curiosity, but soon I discovered the true value of the artist: Artists have the potential and capacity to advance scientific knowledge into solutions and visions that belong to the future – the artist propels scientific knowledge into the future, transformed by the artistic intuition possessed by them. This is how civilisations advance and go further. This is artists’ responsibility and mission though history.
I reached out to professionals in the fields of astrobiology, microbiology, biology, engineering, bioenergy, biotechnology and philosophy. I like to observe and absorb scientific knowledge, re-elaborate it and create something new, from the intellectual point of view, then proceed to the creative process through elaborating matter. Collaborations with scientists are exciting – I love the process of co-creating knowledge in the making. In a collaboration you may start with a basic idea, but it will become richer and more complex because it will be elaborated simultaneously by different minds that add different types of experiences and sets of skills. A collaboration means learning from the other and co-authoring knowledge. I have been very lucky to work with amazing people who were aware of the practical difficulties in art-science collaborations, and that allowed me to explore their knowledge and practice. My artistic practice is shaped by the collaborations I have made as direct interventions in the intellectual field and the process of creation, which involves transformation at an intellectual level to then transform matter. One of the most revealing experiences I’ve had while working with scientists was to understand that the ego of an artist doesn’t have a place in an interdisciplinary collaboration and the development of a research project. I experienced that, to reach results in a specific project, each person has a role to execute to arrive, together, at a successful result. There is no one above the others, we are all equal on the creative and developmental process. I observed in a group of scientists working together to achieve results, that each contribution from each person was a step forward to achieve a result, everybody was working for a common goal and the benefit of all. I really treasure this experience and the insight it gave.
LIVING ORGANISMS EVOLVE OVER TIME, WHICH MEANS YOUR ARTWORK IS NEVER TRULY STATIC. HOW DO YOU CAPTURE OR DOCUMENT THESE CHANGES, AND DO YOU CONSIDER THE ‘FINAL PRODUCT’ TO BE AN EVOLVING CONCEPT?
I think with this question we can mark a specific turning point in the history of humanity – a point where art is no longer an object that lasts forever like a marble statue, or an oil painting that has existed for centuries. The difference between classic art and contemporary art is the element of ephemerality and immediacy directly dissolving ancient notions of the financial value of art – the art market. Contemporary art that is art-science focused, and specifically bioart, is based on almost unperceivable glimpses of the overwhelming truth that is life. It may be a sound or a sequence of sounds, it may be gravitational orbits engraved on matter, the slow growth of mycelium, the transformation of organic matter translated into poetry, the process of planetary transformation viewed from the perspective of the language of tectonic plates, or fungal colonies as the language of soil.
To document the changes in living matter within my practice I use photography, video and recently through an amazing collaboration with composer Michael Allen Z Prime, I entered the world of sound, by recording the sounds produced by fungal colonies growing. To document this I also use drawing, as I think the action of drawing is charged with a special type of energy. The photographs are just images of moments in time that help me to retain some of the essence of the events that happened within soil, within fungal colonies on petri dishes, the transformation on a biosculpture, a glimpse of the life of algae, or organic matter through the microscope. Photography and video also help me to document the processes in time and allow me to see transformations that occurred. I see photography, video and cinema as a direct connection with time, as windows of different temporalities.
“In my practice, the “final product” is truly an evolving concept. Co-creating with living organisms never has an end, we are both organisms that somehow met at some point in time to understand each other and learn to care through reciprocity”.
The “final product” may present itself as a piece of matter, but it just represents a step in a more complex process that evolves and raises new questions. It’s extensive research that requires interdisciplinary effort, and the initial concept just slides in time, transforming along the creative process.
DO YOU VIEW THE LIVING ORGANISMS YOU WORK WITH AS MERE TOOLS FOR EXPRESSION, OR DO YOU CONSIDER THEM CO-CREATORS IN THE ARTISTIC PROCESS?
Working with living organisms has given me the opportunity to realise that I can collaborate directly with them as co-creators and because of this, ethical considerations arise which make me address my practice in a certain way, because I acknowledge their life, I prefer to follow their development and base my practice on that. I create something new by following their guidance in the process. Since I started to research on the bioart field, I have a new sense of respect and admiration for the living organisms at all scales. I learned to love them. So, I want to show that my work is focused on sharing that love I learned with the public, and giving, through art, a sense of happiness and wonder about this life we live in and with.
WHAT ARE THE MOST UNEXPECTED CHALLENGES YOU’VE ENCOUNTERED WHILE CREATING ART WITH LIVING ORGANISMS? HAVE THESE CHALLENGES EVER LED TO CREATIVE BREAKTHROUGHS?
The first challenge was not having access to do my artistic practice in a lab, as it is almost impossible for an artist to get in. So that aspect, made me go outside of the institutional sphere and make my work and research by myself without depending on any institution. I do my research both at home and in natural landscapes, which gives me a direct connection with nature. I have learned more and in a deeper way. That was unexpected. The artist must keep the creation process without been attached to the institution, it will allow for the flow of energy to run stronger. Other practical aspects include experiments that I expected to work in a certain way, but that didn’t, as the process on matter transformation is never predictable, so I have made this characteristic a driving force for my practice.
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT A SPECIFIC PROJECT WHERE THE BEHAVIOUR OR LIFECYCLE OF THE LIVING ORGANISM DRASTICALLY ALTERED YOUR ORIGINAL ARTISTIC VISION?
I have been working since 2020 on an ongoing research project called Terras Lux. The initial stage of the research was purely on the field of artistic thinking and followed conventional artistic techniques and approaches. But then during research on microbiology, physics and spirituality, it shifted my mind to new ways of producing that were more about integrating interdisciplinary processes to achieve a more complex and rich development of the project.
“I discovered the behaviour of soil microorganisms, and this changed the direction of the project, giving me creatives cues. In a sense, the microorganism’s behaviour gave direction to the research, and they became a voice amplified through the project”.
HOW DO AUDIENCES TYPICALLY REACT TO YOUR WORK? DO YOU FIND THAT PEOPLE CONNECT DIFFERENTLY WITH YOUR ART BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY ALIVE?
People have different reactions. Some feel they are approaching the unknown, some feel excited, others feel curious. But the public has taught me something important: As they enter the exhibiting space their faces are often full of enjoyment and happiness and they come back to an original and primal state, to that of truly discovering something new, just like when we were all children and were still connected to our sense of wonder. That is the power of the convergence of art and science, and the mission of the contemporary artist.
edited by Melissa Sterry