ART AS ENTANGLEMENT: A THEORY OF BIO-ART
SIMONE HANDELMAN DUFFY
Still from Quantifungi, 2024, S H Duffy
WHAT IS BIO-ART?
. TERM COINED IN 1997, EDUARDO KAC* . FINE ART-MAKING IN COLLABORATION WITH MORE-THAN-HUMAN ORGANICS . MORTAL & DECOMPOSABLE
Bio-Relic No. 1. 2025. S H Duffy. Mycelium, Sawdust, OLED Displays, Blue Oyster Mushrooms
*Kac, Eduardo. Time Capsule, 11 Nov. 1997, www.ekac.org/timcap.html.
BIOMATERIALS
. MYCELIUM & FUNGI . ALGAES & ALGINATES . SLIME MOLDS . SYMBIOTIC CULTURE OF BACTERIA & YEAST (SCOBY) . PLANT & ANIMAL-BASED MATERIALS
Images Cited in Final Slide
BIO-ART, IN ITSBio-art, INHERENT MODE COLLABORATION, in its inherent modeOF of collaboration, reflects REFLECTS A BROADER FACT OF THE HUMAN AS PART OF A a broader truth of the human as part of a larger ecology, LARGER ECOLOGY, ALWAYS ALREADY IN RELATION TO NATURAL always OTHER already in relation to otherBEINGS. natural beings. Bio-art shows how mutualism and organic entanglement ground BIO-ART SHOWS HOW MUTUALISM ANDcan ORGANIC ENTANGLEMENT CAN GROUND A THEORY OF ART AND LIFE a theory of art and of life.
Garden of Body, 2021, S H Duffy Moss, Daisies, Plaster Gauze
. WORKING WITH . MORE-THAN-HUMAN COLLABORATION . BREAKDOWN OF ABSOLUTE DISTINCTIONS
Installation shot from SCOBYT (Symbiotic Community of Bacteria Yeast & Time. 2025. S H Duffy. SCOBY, wire, mycelium, mold, vinegar
SYMBIOGENESIS
“THE ORIGIN OF EVOLUTIONARY NOVELTY BY SYMBIOSIS” - LYN MARGULIS WORKING TOGETHER TO CREATE SOMETHING NEW
Still from Quantifungi, 2024, S H Duffy
CHALLENGES TO TRADITIONAL ART THEORY CHALLENGES TO WESTERN COLONIAL ECOLOGY
. ART AS IMITATION . IMPLICATION OF NATURE AS OTHER . LOGIC OF REPRESENTATION, NOT COLLABORATION
. BIO-ART AS ENTANGLEMENT, NOT IMITATION . MATERIALIZING MUTUALISM . ROBIN WALL KIMMERER, DR. KIM TALLBEAR . AGENCY, AUTONOMY, & CARE-BASED CREATION
Process Video, Bio-Inflatable Network No. 1, 2025, S H Duffy
THERE IS NO OTHER
. CREATIVE SYMBIOGENESIS . WORKING TOGETHER TO MAKE SOMETHING UNFORESEEN
. VISUALIZING OUR NATURAL ENTANGLEMENTS . ORGANIC RELATIONALITY, OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE IMITATION
. MODELLING MUTUALISM . THE MEDIUM TO REIMAGINE OUR ORGANIC RELATIONS
Detail from Intersubjective Mobile No. 1. S H Duffy. 2025 Blue Oyster Mushrooms, SCOBY, Hair, Bioplastics, Wire, Servo Motor, Deer Bones, Resin Print
SYMBIOGENESIS . BIO-ART REMINDS US THAT LIFE IS NOT GROUNDED IN INDIVIDUALISM AND OTHERING . MODELS COLLABORATIVE WORLD, CO-CREATION, ENTANGLEMENT . NATURE AS ACTIVE RELATION OF MUTUAL CARE
. BIO-ART REMINDS US THAT LIFE IS NOT GROUNDED IN INDIVIDUALISM AND OTHERING . MODELS COLLABORATIVE SYMBIOGENESIS WORLD, CO-CREATION, ENTANGLEMENT . NATURE AS ACTIVE RELATION
THIS IS WHY BIO-ART MUST BE MADE TODAY. IT IS THE ONLY MEDIUM THAT CAN ADDRESS THE LOGICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IN ITS FORM, MATERIALLY PROCESSING AND PRODUCTIVELY MATERIALIZING HOW HUMAN AND MORE-THAN-HUMAN RELATE MUTUALLY.
IMAGE CITATIONS Slide 3:
“Bioplastic Cookbook for Ritual Healing from Petrochemical Landscapes.” [Gelatin] Bioplastic Cookbook for Ritual Healing from Petrochemical Landscapes, bioplastic-cookbook.schloss-post.com/gelatin.html. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026. Cultures For Health. “What Is a Scoby: What Is a Kombucha Scoby & What Is It Made Of?” Cultures For Health, 13 Mar. 2023, culturesforhealth.com/blogs/learn/what-is-scoby-kombucha. “Fantastic Fungi: Harnessing the Magic of Mycelium to Create Striking Sculptures.” Loughborough University, 5 Oct. 2022, www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2022/october/mycelium-student-sculptures/. Fischer, Lars. “How Slime Molds Remember Where They Ate.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 20 Feb. 2024, www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-slime-molds-remember-where-they-ate/. Research, TALL Materials. “Taxon: Archive: Lab - Library.” TAL, tall-materials.org/materials-collection/agar-agar-bioplastic/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026. Researchers Create Edible, Transparent Composite Packaging with Biocellulose, phys.org/news/2023-06-edible-transparent-composite-packaging-biocellulose.html. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.
Slide 14&15: Maxim Velli, Taylor Rayne, Rasmus Tofthøj, Tania Safa – Kojigotchi, 2025
All other images belong to Simone Handelman Duffy
WORKS CITED
Alexopoulos, Constantine J., Charles W. Mims, and M. Blackwell. “Fungus.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/science/fungus. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997. Cavalier-Smith, Thomas. “Origin of Mitochondria by Intracellular Enslavement of a Photosynthetic Purple Bacterium.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273, no. 1596 (August 7, 2006): 1943–1952. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3531. Collingwood, R. G. The Principles of Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938. Kac, Eduardo. “Bio Art: From Genesis to Natural History of the Enigma.” 2007. https://www.ekac.org/bioart_kac.pdf. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013. Lee, Suzanne. “Grow Your Own Clothes.” TED Talk, June 2011. https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_lee_grow_your_own_clothes. Margulis, Lynn. “Words as Battle Cries: Symbiogenesis and the New Field of Endocytobiology.” BioScience 40, no. 9 (October 1990): 673–677. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1311435. Ostendorf-Rodríguez, Yasmine. Let’s Become Fungal!: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2023. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. “The Cloudy Origins of Kombucha.” Smithsonian Folklife Magazine, March 2022. https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/cloudy-origins-of-kombucha. Tallbear, Kim. “Decolonial Sex and Relations for a More Sustainable World,” lecture, Weweni Indigenous Scholars Speaker Series, The University of Winnipeg, October 17, 2018. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. “Attunement: Form in Motion.” In Symbionts: Contemporary Artists and the Biosphere, edited by Caroline A. Jones, Natalie Bell, and Selby Nimrod, 87–95. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2022.
Thank You