Bioism: new living art forms The CreativeMindClass Blog
"I was born in the Soviet Union in what is today Ukraine. I was a huge fan of drawing as when I was a kid; I won several prizes. Following high school I went on to study economics, but wasn't satisfied with the possibility of a full-time future at the workstation of a boring and dusty workplace. Then I decided to pursue at art with a serious approach, which eventually resulted in me enrolling in the class taught by Konrad Klapheck at the Art Academy of Dusseldorf. Later, I went on to be a student of Shirin Neshat from Salzburg."
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"Making artwork for me, is an important method of creating unimaginable imaginary worlds.
The alien-like appearance, the unnatural forms and feelings - that is what I love to visualize and think about. In my early years, like everybody else, I was drawn to the things which surrounded me and then I began to feel dissatisfied with interpreting the most well-known facts about visuals.
The attempt to create any variation that is possible and artefacts that are not known to me inspired me to design completely unique universes."
What would you say about your art style?
"Bioism. Biofuturism. Paradise Engineering. Bioethical Abolitionism. My day-to-day reflection and quote is:
Bioism or biofuturism represents my attempt to create life-like living things and new aesthetics of future organic life. Bioism is an approach to design art-related objects that demonstrate the visual potential of synthetic biology. Bioism is a method to create art that is based on vitality, multiplicity and complexity. I regard each of my works as an actual living thing. Bioism brings life to lifeless subject matter.
Personally, I think that in the near future, in the wake of an evolutionary revolution, we'll use living furniture, reside in living homes and travel in space using living spaces. The most fascinating aspect will be the capacity for artists to create living materials, and thus create new forms of life. Artistic expression will gain an actual feeling of being born. It could be a reaction of the art object to its creator and surroundings. Art museums of the future could turn into zoological gardens and galleries, they could be transformed into diversification funds, and ateliers to biological laboratories.
Bioism aims to spread new and endless kinds of life in the universe. Paradise engineering represents an epiphany of new bioethics...
This manifesto, as I see it, can never be completed, since I myself am a living process still working on the issue."
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What are the most important factors in making your installation?
"I am trying to avoid the use of primitive geometrics, which means No straight lines, or the absence of lines, as far as is possible. I'm chasing the intersection between both macro and micro an everyday basis.
Anything that isn't understood, or too complicated is instantly noticed by our eyes as organic or somehow alive. Biology is among the deepest and most complex information architecture in the universe."
A church can be a formal setting. Do you find it difficult to work within such a area?
"It is based on your own inner beliefs, fears, or the degree of uncertainty you have in your understanding of your place in the human universe. Personally, I have almost none of the knowledge about the concept of time, space and all their marvels. An so when in an institution, I feel as if I'm a child who's exploring an enormous and bizarre playground that is a part of communication function.
It is my goal to show respect toward the art of it, but I do not ignore its fun aspect, the part about talking to a Deity. It is a bit like an XXL-style phone booth where while talking or trying to hear you can be funny too."
How much are you in control of the process of creation and what percentage of the creation process involves biomimetic?
"Controlling chaos is a challenging venture. My inner ear and eyes are all about to receive an unknown melody or shapes, that speak to me, and stimulates my imagination. But it is not one way process where you behave like a mining machine: finding the most interesting gems and throwing hell of waste of uninteresting possibilities to your back. For me, it's not a good idea.
I do combine fascinations and other interests for a not-so-pleasant music, but a unexpected revelations also. One of the most rewarding aspects of my work is the ability creating a new universe when you know what it should look like. There are times when you dream and other times it happens in the night while sleeping. But the certainty is - the more I make my own world, the more joys I get, where chaos is my partner in growing bioism."
Are you a creative person who enjoys it or gain something more from it? Like meditation or communication with your vulnerable side?
"Drawing time is contemplation time. Additionally, I draw as I discover myself and see how far I could surprise my own self as well as how my universe could surprise me - which involves all possible activities on this strange pathway. Sometimes, the humor is funny for sure, but sometimes, if I'm in need of more adrenaline, I go out into the world and perform an intervention."
How did you get to bioism? How did you get started? it?
"The first steps were rather normal: I remember how happy I was about my half-drawing-half-painting of the tractor in the field for which I was praised in kindergarten.
Later I fell in love by drawing landscapes which meant I could lie in the grass for long periods of time and try to sketch nature's movements on the cardboard. Then I made several portraits. However, I became so unhappy, so bored with the dullness of any human figure that was reproduced (including in videos and photographs), that I stopped. The moment I stopped, the shell of my egg broke and I emerged like an octopus (or Godzilla). This means I was brought nearer to the secret of life. What exactly is it? The idea isn't to define the current one however, it is to write an entirely new version. It was the first day of my bioethics and bioism."
As I perused your IG I was thinking that bioism might be interested in homeless issues within LA...
"But there was an opposite tale that it was freezing on the streets and lonely residents were content to be touched by every human touch, listen to the Christmas story of the new-born bioism, as well as to play with the tiny blue children of it.
The grim poverty that is evident on the beaches of Hollywood may trigger a totally different approach and I'm forced to think of the philosophical aspects of bioism meeting with hypothetical Diogenes from Venice."
To see more of Aljoscha's body of work and explore bioism in greater depth, visit his Instagram and his current installation in The cathedral St. John the Divine in New York.