Between Bios and Art: Aesthetic and Ethical Significance of Art Working with Living Materials

Agnieszka Anna Wolodzka | Leiden University | Promotor: Prof. dr. R. Zwijnenberg
In my research I investigate the aesthetico-ethical implications of art as practice and vehicle of meaning production. I am focusing in particular on how art comes with ethical concerns and responsibilities within its creative practice. This aesthetico-ethical dimension of art expresses a quest for redefinition of what the materiality of the body and life is, which in turn influences new modes of meaning production. I concentrate on art’s dealing with moist media and living tissue materials as new forms of expression of the body, its nature and its limits, and how this constructs the notion of matter as active and capable of producing meaning.