Tropismen 12 - Fotosynthese

Tropisms

Tropisms are projects created by art movement Tropism. Photosynthesis is the travelling exhibition that wants to shed a new light on plants. This app forms the complete catalogue for botanical gardens curators and for galleries that are interested in botany-related art.


Shedding new light on plants

The world of plants as we have never seen it before. That is the essence of this exhibition. Artists belonging to art movement Tropism have been photographing the world of plants, using unusual, often scientific, visualisation techniques. The use of infrared, x-ray, pinhole and electron microscopy give the images a surrealistic and magical touch. The results are unique artistic visualisations that offer a surprising and spectacularly different view of plants.


Plant Perceptions

The exhibition wants to shed light on plants, using a broad array of (plant-related) perceptions. An example of this is the actual perception of a plant in the Flora Sonora installation, in which the reactions of plants that are being touched are translated into audio. Another example of the twenty or so perceptions is the infrared photography series Infra Russus that shows plants without ‘make up’. ‘Naked plants’, as many insects and birds see them, in the ultra violet spectrum, and plants do dress up in seductive colours in that spectrum. The hyperbolic panorama is a projection of the 360º vision of an insect, and the pinhole photography lets you experience the plant world from the viewpoint and size of an insect.


Photographs, graphics, films and media-art

The exhibition is an initiative of media-artist Robin Noorda. He will be showing infrared photography, electrophotograms, hyperbolic panoramas and experimental films.
Bethany de Forest has created magical surrealistic plantscapes using pinhole-photography, a camera obscura technique. Arie van ’t Riet has used x-ray for his bioramas. Margot van de Stolpe has created graphics based on patterns and structures found in plants.

In a series of photographs, fellow-artist, designer and composer Alfred Marseille has combined the many perspectives of a single tree into one image. He is also responsible for the musical compositions that are part of the exhibition. Adriaan van Aelst and Frans Holthuysen will be showing the fascinating micro world of the plant kingdom by means of electron microscopy.

Also on show at the exhibition are several intriguing film productions, such as ‘Red-end and the Seemingly Symbiotic Society’, the short animation film by Noorda and De Forest, that has won many international film awards.
A film project by Susanne Ohmann combines time-lapse techniques with choreography and body paint. It shows a Hortus visitor who slowly transforms into a forest nymph.

The Karl Blossfeldt Archive has given its special permission to include this remarkable pioneering photographer’s architectonic photographs of plants, published in ‘Urformen der Kunst’ (Archetypes of art, 1929). A source of inspiration for many Tropists.

Presentation concept

The exhibition consists of a hundred works, the majority of which have been especially created for this occasion. The presentation of the works aims to optimise a ‘wow’-experience for the visitors. The spectacular images raise the question: ‘what do we really see?’ Explanatory texts inform the visitor on subject and technique, and on the vision of the artist. All works are realised in botanical gardens or are directly inspired by plants.

The works are also for sale as limited edition dibond-acrilycs.

A singing plant concert will be performed during the opening of the exhibition, and on various (scheduled) Saturday evenings. Musicians will play the plants by touch. This concert is also bookable as a separate event. During ‘Museum Night’, November 3rd 2012, the singing plant project will be on show as a small performance installation in the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam.