Suzanne Anker Libri

The symbolic meaning of plants, their relevance to religion and the metaphorical provocations in the order of knowledge, culture and political power underline the role of plants as something more than passive objects. Current theoretical and artistic discourses have been seeking access to the world independently of man by focusing on the nonhuman other. The contributors to this volume examine the historical, philosophical and scientific findings that generate this idea. In what way are such perspectives manifest in contemporary art? Do artists develop a particular approach that enables nonhuman life forms like plants, insects or animals to have an impact?

This volume chronicles the visual art and writings of pioneering video artist Frank Gillette. Revisiting his work from the late ‘60s and ‘70s to his current practice, this book traces Gillette’s incorporation of the natural world into new media technologies. Surveying the oeuvre of this seminal artist, the reader is offered an insight into how technology erupted and continues to intersect with sense perception, and visual thinking. Axis of Observation I: Frank Gillette includes essays written by Suzanne Anker, Sabine Flach, Taney Roniger, David Ross, and Roy Skodnick, together with a facsimile of Gillette’s first publication Between Paradigms: The Mood and its Purpose (1973).

In this collaborative work between artist and theorist Suzanne Anker and art historian Sabine Flach, the study of image production unveils the reality of pictures beyond their function as mere representations of the world. The visuals range from firsthand accounts of specimen collections in historical medical museums, to scientific research laboratories, to studies of plant propagation, among other themes concerning life forms and Bio Art. Focusing on systems of artistic knowledge, the authors demonstrate how context, scale and framing devices alter meaning in pictorial systems. Somatic responses, classification networks and image banks are explored as they relate to intersections in visual art and the biological sciences.

Embodied Fantasies, a concept central to art history, theory and practice is concurrently a topic debated in the fields of the neuro- and cognitive sciences, philosophy and phenomenology. This volume focuses on notions of embodiment as they relate to sexuality, aesthetics, epistemology, perception, and fantasy itself. Approaches to modes of fantasies are explored beyond traditional conceptions to include complex thinking processes, subjectivity and inter-subjective experiences. What function do fantasies and their images possess in relation to art as a form of knowledge production?

Nature, a topic central to art history, is concurrently a dominant concept in contemporary art, art theory and its related disciplines such as cultural theory, philosophy, aesthetic theory and environmental studies. The project Naturally Hypernatural questions lines of tradition and predetermined categories that coexist with the topic of nature. Currently, nature in art surpasses the simple depiction of art as a material or object. To clarify and analyze the interrelations between nature and art is the aim of the project Naturally Hypernatural. Concepts of Nature – the first volume of this project – argues that contemporary art is predominantly concerned with concepts of nature regarding the depth of their implications in order to reveal and analyze their internal structure.