Undisciplinary Reflections on the Artistic Creation of Biotopes for Ants, Plants, and Humans

Main Article Content

Santiago Morilla

Abstract

This article discusses Static Cycle-Biotope for Ants, Plants, and Humans (2024), an interactive eco-art installation that creates a biotope for a biological community containing both plants and Messor barbarus ants. This dynamic space encourages collaboration and mutual observation, questioning the division between nature and culture and exploring the shared agency between humans and other living beings. In its version installed at the Museum of Science and Water in Murcia, the public pedals to maintain the ecosystem, exploring intra-actions, according to Karen Barad’s theoretical framework. The artwork critiques traditional causality, proposing a relational ontology that reveals how human and non-human actions co-constitute shared realities that are shaped as interfaces of inter-species cooperation that, in turn, promote the production of a biophilic subjectivity.

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How to Cite
Morilla, S. (2025). Undisciplinary Reflections on the Artistic Creation of Biotopes for Ants, Plants, and Humans. Diseña, (26), Article.7. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.26.Article.7
Section
Original Articles (part 2)
Author Biography

Santiago Morilla, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Lecturer, Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). PhD in Contemporary Art, UCM. After graduating in Fine Arts from UCM, he studied Design and Media Arts at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. A multidisciplinary artist and lecturer in both bachelor and master’s programs at the Faculty of Fine Arts, UCM, he is a member of the research groups ‘Artistic Practices and New Forms of Knowledge’ (UCM) and ‘Urban Art and Technosphere’ (associated with the ‘Creative Approaches to Public Space’ Master’s program at the Université de Rennes 2). He is also part of the R&D project ‘Energy Humanities: Energy and Socio-Cultural Imaginaries Between the Industrial Revolution and the Ecosocial Crisis’, based at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). His art-based research focuses on the synergies between situated technologies, public interventions, interspecies communication, and data visualization. He received the special award of his doctorate in Fine Arts, UCM. He is a member of the Accesos. Revista de investigación artística Editorial Board. Some of his latest publications include ‘Devenir postnaturaleza. De la naturaleza instrumentalizada al paisaje posnatural en la obra After Alife Ahead (2017) del artista Pierre Huyghe’ ((pensamiento), (palabra) y obra, Issue 31); ‘Creación y experimentación con interfaces críticas en artes y educación’ (co-authored with Martínez Luna); Sobre. Prácticas editoriales en arte y arquitectura, Issue 10); and ‘Hacia un arte postlocativo’. Artnodes, Issue 31).

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