Postnaturalia

Postnaturalia is a complex sculptural installation made by Krištof Kintera, with the collaboration of Richard Wiesner and Rastislav Juhás, for Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia.

Krištof Kintera, Datalia Immanis, 2016/2017, mixed media, 25 x 67 x 60 cm

Postnaturalia is a complex sculptural installation made by Krištof Kintera, with the collaboration of Richard Wiesner and Rastislav Juhás, for Collezione Maramotti. Its title speaks for itself: the scenario in which our daily experience is inscribed both as individuals and as a community does not belong to the natural world any longer. In the so-called “copper age”, based on the transmission of energy and information, nature is compared by Kintera to a huge nervous system; for this reason as well, his project is grafted in different spaces of the Collection as a living organism would do.

First of all, Nature is recreated and regenerated in the space called Laboratorio dell’artista/Artist’s Laboratory. Images, photographs, notes and sketches on the walls, electric and electronic waste materials, stills, lamps, chemical substances, are all items and tools of the trade which become generative elements of a new natural beauty for the artist. A series of videos are also conveying Kinteras’ real sounds and work processes taking place in his Prague’s studio.

Krištof Kintera, Evolution Revision, 2015/2016, mixed media, 110x90x70cm. © Krištof Kintera — Krištof Kintera, *Evolution Revision*, 2015/2016, mixed media, 110x90x70cm. © Krištof Kintera

By taking as a model the scientist’s old approaches and his prototypes (scale models and herbariums held in display cases in the workshop), new kinds of plants are grown, classified and sown in a wide para-vegetal nervous system finding its place in a second room in the Collection. The Systemus Postnaturalis presents an artificial carpet of plants growing through an intricate mesh of copper roots: three islands are joined together through pathways that visitors can experience directly. The light fostering its growth is also artificially steered through the space.