Maarten Vanden Eynde
Belgium °1977
research interests: Art, Archaeology, Geology, Science and Technology Studies, Science Fiction, Future Studies, colonization, colonial memory, natural resources, natural science, natural history museum, museology, technology, biomimicry, genetics, genealogy, genetic engineering
affiliation: University of Bergen, Faculty og Fine Art, Music and Design (KMD)
en
For almost two decades I study humanities ecological impact on Earth, visualised by the current geological layer we will leave behind for future generations. Most of my works start from an investigation into the materiality of objects that surround us, ranging from the origin of the different materials and the contexts in which they are extracted, transported and transformed, to the remains after they are no longer in use. The Anthropocene, a new and contested geologic chronological term for the epoch that began when human activities started having a significant global impact on the Earth’s ecosystems, is my main area of interest. The surrounding discourse and its entanglements within a global and post-colonial context is at the core of my artistic research. I deliberately look for and relate to different fields of study, social contexts and anthropological perspectives as an arena in which I produce, exhibit and talk about my work.
My practice is embedded in longterm research projects that allow me to focus on a specific topic for many years and generate multiple works and presentation opportunities. For instance, I developed and studied the concept of Genetology (The Science of First Things) from 2003 to 2014 and tried to define this non-existing opposition of the existing Eschatology (The Science of Last Things). In general Genetology studies human nature to facilitate and stimulate change, manipulate evolution and alter the world in order to create something new. Today I still use this fictional science as a methodology and framework to look at the world we live in.
From 2008 to 2013, I worked on a research project and sculpture called Plastic Reef, a growing installation of melted plastic debris from the worlds oceans, dealing both with one of humanities most pressing pollution problems and the disappearance of coral reefs worldwide. For this project I worked closely together with several marine researchers and joined multiple scientific research expeditions.
Currently I'm investigating the influence of transatlantic trade of pivotal materials (like rubber, oil, ivory, copper, cobalt, cotton, lithium and uranium), on the evolution of human kind, the creation of nations and other global power structures. The project Triangular Trade traces back the origin of the different materials and follows their (r)evolutionary path as they are processed and transformed into 'world changing wonders'.
research
research expositions
works
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The Great Decline (20/03/2019)
Art object: Art object, artist(s)/author(s): Maarten Vanden Eynde
Biodiversity is in dangerous decline, in both animal and plant kingdoms. One of the attempts to secure survival of as many different plant species as possible is the creation of gene banks in seed vaults and time capsules. In 2008, Norway opened the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which stores a collection of duplicate samples or “spare” copies of seeds held in gene banks worldwide, as a fail-safe solution in case of regional or global crises. In 2018, the collection surpassed one million samples, containing more than one third of the world’s most important food crop varieties. The Great Decline combines the blueprints of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, visualised as a copper circuit on large scale PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards), and a wide variety of seeds collected from around the world. Together they create a huge Lukasa, or memory board, that imitates the ones used by the Bambudye within the Luba Kingdom in the Democratic Republic of Congo (throughout the 19th and 20th Century) as an archive for the topographical and chronological mapping of political histories and as a means to recollect important people, places and mythical migration routes. The seeds on The Great Decline were collected from the Botanical Garden of Meise (Belgium), Jardin Botanique de Lubumbashi (D. R. Congo), and various other places around the world. They are organised in relation to the graphical outlines of the blueprint of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and mimic transistors and other electrical components that are mounted on PCBs. They evoke the memory of seed collection, preservation, modification and militarisation. -
Immortality Drive (14/06/2018)
Art object: Art object, artist(s)/author(s): Maarten Vanden Eynde
Immortality Drive consists of various graphic translations of the image of the first monolithic silicon integrated circuit chip, invented by Robert Noyce of Fairchild in 1961, transferred on a copper circuit. This world changing invention is immortalised on a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) and decorated with a wide variety of seeds and grains from around the world, as in the configuration of transistors and electrical components. Together they create a Lukasa, or memory board, that imitates the ones used by the Bambudye within the Luba Kingdom in the Democratic Republic of Congo throughout the 19th and 20th Century, as an archive for the topographical and chronological mapping of political histories, and as a means to recollect important people, places and mythical migration routes. The seeds were collected from the Botanical Garden of Meise (Belgium), Jardin Botanique de Lubumbashi (D.R. Congo), and various other places around the world. They are organised according to the graphical outlines of the first monolithic silicon integrated circuit chip and evoke the memory of seed collection, preservation, modification and militarisation. -
Copper Country (08/06/2016)
Art object: Art object, artist(s)/author(s): Maarten Vanden Eynde
Copper is the first metal that was smelted from its ore and the first metal to be cast into a shape using a mould. The majority of mined and recycled copper is currently used in electronic devices because of its high conductivity. It is the metal that is most present in telephones and computers, accounting for more weight than all the other metals combined. Copper Country is a series of three topographic drawings from the largest copper mines in the world: Bingham Canyon in the US, and Chuquicamata and El Morro in Chile. The drawings are made on a printed circuit board (PCB) using the etching technique used to make copper circuits with ferric chloride (FeCl₃) for electronic appliances. The chemical process is interrupted and frozen with varnish, creating an unpredictable variation of the “natural” background in contrast to the graphic human intervention of open pit mineral mining. -
Technofossils (01/06/2015)
Art object: Art object, artist(s)/author(s): Maarten Vanden Eynde
As humans have colonised and modified the Earth’s surface, they have progressively developed more sophisticated tools and technologies. These underpin a new kind of stratigraphy, for which Jan Zalasiewicz (Chair of the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy) coined the term “technostratigraphy.” This is marked by the geologically accelerated evolution and diversification of “technofossils” – the preservable material remains of the “technosphere.” Almost all electrical appliances are made out of electronic circuit boards that all have copper wiring, which, in many cases, originates from copper mines located in D. R. Congo. Most workers in the mines (les creuseurs) don't know themselves what the materials they are extracting are used for. The global information revolution and knowledge distribution – which has been made possible thanks to computers and smart phones, in connection with the Internet – does not connect to the material point of origin. The gap between the beginning and the end, between cause and consequence, is unbelievably big. Technofossils brings both worlds closer together by sculpting the telephones directly into the rocks, as if they were always there and were waiting to be discovered or liberated. -
Ikea Vase (10/06/2010)
Art object: Art object, artist(s)/author(s): Maarten Vanden Eynde
History and historiography are inherently subjective as they are made, told and retold by individual people who have selective memory and can undermine or twist the perception of truth and reality at will. What we can be sure of, however, is that mistakes are continuously made when reconstructing the past, because the information available (and its limits or drawbacks) demands degrees of interpretation and speculation, not to mention bias. IKEA-Vase is an amphora-shaped vase made of restoration paste incorporating the fragments of an IKEA mug. Because of the unimaginable amount of IKEA products that are spread over the globe, and the proved fact that ceramics tend to withstand the passing of time rather well, there are bound to be material leftovers of these mass-produced consumer goods in future geological strata. The work questions the ability of historical artefacts to give an accurate impression of what life in an inherently unknowable past would have been like. Through this process it points out the hypothetically fallacious impressions a future archaeologist might conceivably formulate about our present, based on its surviving remnants. -
Contemporary Cavepaintings (06/06/2010)
Art object: Photograph, artist(s)/author(s): Maarten Vanden Eynde
The first visual manifestation of human presence and expression of individual ‘mark-making’, was the creation of hand-marks; negative prints of hands, on caves or mountain slopes in chalk. This territorial behaviour evolved into graffiti and tags in the modern urban environment. The same iconography was used for Contemporary Cavepaintings to re-introduce the implementation of basic signatures to delimit territory and preserve human presence forever. Modern city ‘caves,’ such as hideouts under bridges or abandoned parking lots, were marked by spraying white spray-paint over a hand on the wall. This left an empty space, a negative being, a human void. The gesture questions originality and authenticity and visualizes the quest for the consolidation of human presence in the environment. -
Geology of Genetology (02/06/2009)
Publication: Publication, artist(s)/author(s): Dieter Roelstraete, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Genetology is a self invented science which studies imaginary fragments that reassemble a possible future history. Eschatology (the existing and dominant science of last things) preludes Genetology. In general Genetology studies the human nature to fascilitate and stimulate change, manipulate evolution and alter the world in order to create something new. In 2006 I started to collect data on a weblog (www.genetology.net), which functioned as an online sketchbook where, besides my own work, other artworks, events in history, scientific discoveries, intellectual discourse and philosophical explorations are assembled in order to be able to define Genetology. I categorised the content within the different existing branches of science since they represent our best attempt to separate and encapsulate all existing knowledge. This combination of text and images (of my own work and that of other artists and scientists) has been part of my art practice ever since. In 2009 I published the first three pages/quires of a large publication about my genetologic research. For every new quire that is published, a text is written by a different author, relating to the context (see attached quires of Archaeology, Geology, Zoology and Cosmology). The second publication was accompanied by a curated exhibition 'Landscaping' in which several of the featured artworks were exhibited. It was the first time I could experiment with a possible physical presentation of Genetology, focusing on one chapter of the research: Geology. What is the content of the geological layer we are currently constructing and which will represent our society in the future? In 2010 mathematician Martin Lo asked me if I could visualize a new theory on dark matter and dark energy which he and a team of scientists of JPL/NASA developed. His initial question instigated an exhibition project in which several more artists and scientists were involved. Consequently Martin Lo wrote a text for the new quire on Cosmology. -
Archaeology of Genetology (01/03/2009)
Publication: Publication, artist(s)/author(s): Hans Theys, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Genetology is a self invented science which studies imaginary fragments that reassemble a possible future history. Eschatology (the existing and dominant science of last things) preludes Genetology. In general Genetology studies the human nature to fascilitate and stimulate change, manipulate evolution and alter the world in order to create something new. In 2006 I started to collect data on a weblog (www.genetology.net), which functioned as an online sketchbook where, besides my own work, other artworks, events in history, scientific discoveries, intellectual discourse and philosophical explorations are assembled in order to be able to define Genetology. I categorised the content within the different existing branches of science since they represent our best attempt to separate and encapsulate all existing knowledge. This combination of text and images (of my own work and that of other artists and scientists) has been part of my art practice ever since. In 2009 I published the first three pages/quires of a large publication about my genetologic research. For every new quire that is published, a text is written by a different author, relating to the context (see attached quires of Archaeology, Geology, Zoology and Cosmology). The second publication was accompanied by a curated exhibition 'Landscaping' in which several of the featured artworks were exhibited. It was the first time I could experiment with a possible physical presentation of Genetology, focusing on one chapter of the research: Geology. What is the content of the geological layer we are currently constructing and which will represent our society in the future? In 2010 mathematician Martin Lo asked me if I could visualize a new theory on dark matter and dark energy which he and a team of scientists of JPL/NASA developed. His initial question instigated an exhibition project in which several more artists and scientists were involved. Consequently Martin Lo wrote a text for the new quire on Cosmology. -
Zoology of Genetology (01/11/2009)
Publication: Publication, artist(s)/author(s): Alan Weisman, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Genetology is a self invented science which studies imaginary fragments that reassemble a possible future history. Eschatology (the existing and dominant science of last things) preludes Genetology. In general Genetology studies the human nature to fascilitate and stimulate change, manipulate evolution and alter the world in order to create something new. In 2006 I started to collect data on a weblog (www.genetology.net), which functioned as an online sketchbook where, besides my own work, other artworks, events in history, scientific discoveries, intellectual discourse and philosophical explorations are assembled in order to be able to define Genetology. I categorised the content within the different existing branches of science since they represent our best attempt to separate and encapsulate all existing knowledge. This combination of text and images (of my own work and that of other artists and scientists) has been part of my art practice ever since. In 2009 I published the first three pages/quires of a large publication about my genetologic research. For every new quire that is published, a text is written by a different author, relating to the context (see attached quires of Archaeology, Geology, Zoology and Cosmology). The second publication was accompanied by a curated exhibition 'Landscaping' in which several of the featured artworks were exhibited. It was the first time I could experiment with a possible physical presentation of Genetology, focusing on one chapter of the research: Geology. What is the content of the geological layer we are currently constructing and which will represent our society in the future? In 2010 mathematician Martin Lo asked me if I could visualize a new theory on dark matter and dark energy which he and a team of scientists of JPL/NASA developed. His initial question instigated an exhibition project in which several more artists and scientists were involved. Consequently Martin Lo wrote a text for the new quire on Cosmology. -
Cosmology of Genetology (01/11/2010)
Publication: Publication, artist(s)/author(s): Martin Wen-Yu Lo, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Genetology is a self invented science which studies imaginary fragments that reassemble a possible future history. Eschatology (the existing and dominant science of last things) preludes Genetology. In general Genetology studies the human nature to fascilitate and stimulate change, manipulate evolution and alter the world in order to create something new. In 2006 I started to collect data on a weblog (www.genetology.net), which functioned as an online sketchbook where, besides my own work, other artworks, events in history, scientific discoveries, intellectual discourse and philosophical explorations are assembled in order to be able to define Genetology. I categorised the content within the different existing branches of science since they represent our best attempt to separate and encapsulate all existing knowledge. This combination of text and images (of my own work and that of other artists and scientists) has been part of my art practice ever since. In 2009 I published the first three pages/quires of a large publication about my genetologic research. For every new quire that is published, a text is written by a different author, relating to the context (see attached quires of Archaeology, Geology, Zoology and Cosmology). The second publication was accompanied by a curated exhibition 'Landscaping' in which several of the featured artworks were exhibited. It was the first time I could experiment with a possible physical presentation of Genetology, focusing on one chapter of the research: Geology. What is the content of the geological layer we are currently constructing and which will represent our society in the future? In 2010 mathematician Martin Lo asked me if I could visualize a new theory on dark matter and dark energy which he and a team of scientists of JPL/NASA developed. His initial question instigated an exhibition project in which several more artists and scientists were involved. Consequently Martin Lo wrote a text for the new quire on Cosmology.