Aljoscha, born in 1974 in Lozova, Ukraine, is a Ukrainian visual artist known for his conceptual installations, interventions and sculptures that explore ideas related to bioism, biofuturism, and bioethical abolitionism. In his artwork, he addresses themes such as biology, the theory of life, and the creation of new forms of life or living beings and systems. His work often combines elements of biology, philosophy, and science, aiming to create an aesthetic and bioethical utopia.
Aljoscha’s artistic process involves drawing and painting, which are independent from his three-dimensional works. He creates intricate acrylic objects and installations made of pigmented acrylic glass that have both sculptural and painterly qualities. These works are characterized by their transparency, fragility, and ephemeral nature, giving them a sense of mobility and dynamism. His sculptures often resemble biological or organic objects, evoking the filigree structure of unknown complexity in nature.
The artist’s goal is to create new worlds with his unique formal language and raise questions about individuals, their freedom, and broader social processes from a bioethical perspective. He envisions a future where art and biology intersect, leading to interactions with living furniture, living houses, and living environments. Aljoscha believes in the possibility of artists creating advanced, non-suffering life forms and sees art museums of the future evolving into zoological gardens and galleries transforming into new life diversity funds.
Bioism, a term coined by Aljoscha, is central to his artistic philosophy. It represents his attempt to create novel life forms and develop a new aesthetic for the future of organic life. Bioism emphasizes the importance of vitality, multiplicity, complexity, and deviations in art. It calls for the composition of new life worlds from scratch, rather than merely describing existing natural phenomena. Aljoscha sees each of his works as an unknown living being and extends life to lifeless subjects.
Furthermore, Bioism aligns with bioethical abolitionism, aiming to minimize suffering, maximize well-being, and promote empathy and understanding in our disrupted relationship with the biological world. It envisions a future where ethical boundaries are permanently redefined, universal empathy is enforced, and the pursuit of paradise engineering leads to deviative progress.
Aljoscha’s work has been exhibited internationally, and he has received several awards and grants for his contributions to the art world. He is known for his complex and delicate artworks that challenge traditional artistic norms and explore the potential of synthetic biology and bioethics in art.
In addition to his artistic endeavors, Aljoscha has been involved in charitable installations and protests against violence, particularly in response to the conflict in Ukraine. His art and actions reflect his commitment to condemning violence and advocating for peace and kindness.
An Interview with Aljoscha
By Carol Real
Can you elaborate on the concept of bioism and its significance in your work?
Bioism is a visionary and somewhat speculative approach to the intersection of art, synthetic biology, and bioethics. It encompasses a range of ideas that aim to shape the future of our organic life and philosophic perception. Having been born and raised in Ukraine, I have always wondered how little our civilization understands biology and its hidden domination in all of our ideas and social structures. The air we breathe and every dream we have are biological products. Very early in my life, I felt an urgent necessity to set up a framework of futuristic questions based on biology and aesthetics. In its very beginning, bioism was framed as a probably very childish attempt to create entirely new life forms, marking a departure from merely describing existing natural entities. The focus has been laid at the synthesis of novel, possibly non-suffering life forms that extend beyond the limitations of traditional biological organisms. Later, the concept has been thought further towards an intersection of art and synthetic biology, aiming to evolve art creatures that express the visual possibilities emerging from advancements in biological sciences and bioethics. This involves incorporating principles of vitality, multiplicity, with the highest level of complexity and deviations. One of the provoking principles of bioism is the extension of life to lifeless subjects. This involves redefining the term “life” towards non-organic living organisms or systems, questioning the traditional imaginative boundaries between the living and nonliving. Ancient human dreams, myths, and fairytales could become a real future where interactions with the environment, furniture, and even architectural spaces are imbued with living qualities. This extends to the exploration of deep space within living environments, reflecting a radical reimagining of the relationship between life, thinkable, and the constructed world. Furthermore, my statement suggests a transformation of art institutions into spaces that showcase new life diversity. Museums could become akin to zoological gardens, and studios could function as laboratories creating new biological complexity. Bioism is closely enrooted with bioethical abolitionism–the emerging science and philosophy of paradise engineering. It envisions a future where bioethical principles extend beyond the abolition of suffering to actively shape consciousness, empathy, and the well-being of both humans and the newly created life forms, based on freedom of deviations. Bioism can be perceived as a stream of ideas that will redefine and broaden ethical boundaries, promote universal empathy, and actively contribute to a future where suffering is minimized, and well-being is maximized through deviations.
Your art has been described as “bio-futuristic sublimity and bliss.” How do you achieve this aesthetic in your sculptures and installations?
I love to create otherworldly appearances, but in doing so, I try to avoid, as far as I can, biomimicry. It is of crucial importance not to imitate or interpret known life forms but to compose something moving, vital, strange, and unknown. Of course, sometimes I use advanced materials, but even during primitive drawing, I am trying to overcome reduction and enrich the idea to the highest possible complexity. I do avoid, even distrust, lines and try to set the dots so tight that everything starts to vibrate, pulsate. These principles are valid for the sculptures and installations as well. Further important qualities of my aesthetics are translucency and transparency.
The title “peak experience” is intriguing. How does this term relate to your art, and what emotions or experiences do you aim to ellicit in your viewers?
I love to use strong, intriguing, and utopian combinations of words for the titles. “Peak experience” in the context of paradise engineering suggests an abrupt multiplication and enhancement of transformative and sublime emotions within the viewers. Certainly, it implies a moment of transcendence and bliss, awe, and wonder. Paradise engineering often seeks to harmonize the uplifting of human existence with nature and technology on its highest possible level. The motivation behind the artwork is to achieve a sense of balance at the apex of possible happiness, at the edge of emotional and intellectual elevation, invoking positive emotions related to the prospect of coexisting with advanced technologies in a utopian or paradise-like environment. And of course, it invites contemplation about the ethical boundaries, implications, and responsibilities. However, I adore letting the viewers feel immersed in a kind of utopian deviation that elicits positive emotions and a sense of serenity.
You’ve mentioned the possibility of living furniture and spaces in the future. How do you see your art contributing to these ideas?
Could you elaborate on the connection between bioism and bioethical abolitionism in your artistic philosophy?
Bioism was born as an aesthetics, but naturally, right after, it obtained ethical qualities. Bioethical abolitionism is a perspective within bioethics that advocates for the abolition of suffering and the promotion of well-being through advancements in biotechnology. It proposes the use of biotechnological interventions to eliminate or mitigate sources of suffering in living organisms. So, both bioism and bioethical abolitionism are about the same bio futuristic utopia. The shared basement between them is mutations and deviations, which should be seen as a source of any ethical and aesthetic well-being. Both bioism and bioethical abolitionism focus on synthesis and creation while advocating for the ethical use of synthetic biology to improve the conditions of life.
In your statement, you mention paradise engineering. How do you envision the role of art museums and galleries in this future?
I feel that many art museums and galleries in the future will definitely be redefined as processes, not as constants. Whether their agents like it or not, these institutions will have to go through transformative roles. As ethics change, many of them will turn into biological gardens of advanced life forms: they will host a diverse array of living artworks resulting from paradise or even dystopian deviations. Galleries could operate as purposeless New Life Diversity Funds, thus functioning between preservation and development of novel living beings. In a paradise-engineered future, the emphasis might extend beyond traditional art to include living organisms as valuable forms of life philosophy and history. The ancient wish of life within an artwork may come true. Museums could obviously serve as educational platforms for bioethics, offering insights into the ethical considerations of the science of happiness or aggressions. Travels through created and unknown gardens, biotopes, and biospheres could foster a deeper understanding of the ethical implications of evolving and interacting with minor or advanced life forms. It is possible to think about the creation of bioengineered art forms that reflect multiple cultural values and aspirations, thus enhancing studies on possible conflicts and aggressions.
Can you share any memorable responses from or encounters with the public when you placed your art in unconventional locations?
I love to work out of the white cubes and to set my “children” into the dangerous, cruel, and sometimes hilarious world. Most of my beings disappeared while being destroyed, hit by sticks, smashed and trampled down, taken away by humans, security guards, or police. Although the locations where people are exposed are generally more friendly. I remember the intervention at the university hospital, where one of the beings has been placed under a blanket in the bed. The nurse entered and jumped out with a silent cry: “Oh my God!” Then the doctor came in and said: “Jesus!” Once I placed a relatively large bioism in a mailbox. This creature with its tentacles tried to reach within the yellow slot. Some of the letter senders tried to check within the box too or to read all the inscriptions on it. The postman just said: “HAHA!” The sleeping workers on the tombs at the cemetery of La Libertad in El Salvador, onto whom I placed the gentle smaller bioisms, at first cried: “¡Puta! or ¡Madre de Dios!”
Your work often challenges traditional power structures, both in politics and art. What message do you hope to convey through these gestures?
Perhaps I would like to convince myself that their world is just an illusion. Well, acting in a highly social environment, or better to say being a cell of a superorganism, somehow infects or charges me with a function of a defending minority or minor, overlooked ideas. Often, unbelievably, I do not pursue any moral judgments or rational considerations: I just prefer to represent, or even sometimes to defend the slightest deviations, fragile possibilities. Somehow, however, I always advocate for greater diversity. In society or in a state, fear often unites. Bioism seeks to escape from mass fears and mass behavior towards individual happiness and individual freedom.
Your art has been described as having “subversive humor.” How do you use humor as a tool in your artistic expression?
Humor might be a superintelligence quality and used by many to break tension and provide relief. I mean not only humans and humor-proofed mammals. Probably life is humor itself, or vice versa. An “incongruity theory” highlights humans from other beings on our planet, but its general source–the violation–cannot be dismissed. Yes, art might be a laughable violation through deviation and ironically each serious artist is a violator, deviator, or just a sad clown.
How do you balance the delicate nature of your sculptures with their potential to be damaged or stolen when placed in public spaces?
I do care about it as much as my body being permanently attacked by viruses or bacteria. Moreover, I perceive it just as coexistence. Most of the cells in our body are eventually damaged, stolen, and replaced. The really intriguing question for me is how to overcome, rejuvenate, and stay or become happy.
Can you share the story behind offering your art for 99 cents at Aldi? What statement were you making with this gesture?
The Aldi adventure has been a kind of convivial consuming-story. People or creatures going to discounters generally are not happy at all. They feel uglified, misused, and pushed to suffer cheap life celebrations. So, devaluating one of my creatures down to its pain level of 99 cents, I was thinking about slave markets of the future, where the bio-machines with low consciousness level could be a mass product. I replaced some price shields with my own in Aldi-style: Bioism, Object 44, Fruity, 99 cents. Many customers came, checked the price, touched, shook, picked, lifted, and put it back into the metal basket again. Finally, with one optimistic customer, it landed at the cashier belt, where the girl exclaimed: “I am not sure what it is, but let me check the barcode. Indeed 99 cents!”
Photo credit: Courtesy of Aljoscha Studio for all images.
Editor: Kristen Evangelista
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