Location Utrecht Science Park: Katharina Busl

While the world is changing, Katharina Busl sees a constant cycle of deconstruction and revival. The way in which humanity is evolving in this world and shaping new perspectives on life, is the central pinciple in her work Melting Point.

At first sight, Busl’s work looks like an off-world landscape. An almost self-sustaining ecosystem, sometimes alienating and other times familiar, putting contract versus harmony; apocalyptic versus tranquillity. Busl: ‘It is certainly not my intention to present a pessimistic or moralistic image of the future. Mostly I’m just curious. This work is meant as a speculation, an exploration. I don’t know the answers that lie ahead in the future. But I do think that there’s a cultural revolution going on, in which the central role that humanity thinks to be playing, and all systems and categories that it created, must be reconsidered.’

Bewilderment

‘Try to see my work as an exploration’, Busl explains. ‘Can you recognise anything? Is this derived from fungi, or is it a human or animal form?’ Most of her creations start with organic materials and is then combined with more synthetic materials. ‘This interplay between natural and artificial elements is also a reflection of my fascination for organoids [human-made reproductions of organs]. How will we be integrating technology and biological materials even further in the future? And what type of progress will that bring?’

Busl draws inspiration for her sculptures both from the biological processes and from new technical developments and philosophy. She uses familiar organic structures, often of microscopic size, to inflate them out of their natural proportions. This results in a fascinating yet bizarre new biotope. One that evokes both admiration and bewilderment.