Wesleyan University's Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery presents "Audible Bacillus" January 29 through March 3, 2019
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Middletown, Conn.—“Audible Bacillus,” an exhibition featuring over a dozen artists working in a range of practices and media curated by Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee, will be on view in Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, located at 283 Washington Terrace on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown, Connecticut, from Tuesday, January 29 through Sunday, March 3, 2019. New extended gallery hours are Tuesday and Wednesday from Noon to 5pm; Thursday from Noon to 7pm; and Friday through Sunday from Noon to 5pm. Admission is free and open to the public. Please see below for more information about the exhibition and related events.
About the Exhibition
One way to understand the phrase Audible Bacillus is as the simple growling of a stomach. Another, is that this sensation in our gut is actually our bacteria creating sound. What if we could perceive our own bacteria? Are they trying to say something to us? And how? New studies in microbiomes are showing a powerful feedback loop between the human brain and the bacteria in the human gut. These bacteria can alter basic human emotions and experiences of the world, effecting aspects generally understood to be within the will of an individual. While science can prove this is happening, it is not yet clear how or why. What is clear is that we exist in a symbiotic relationship with our bacteria—we can’t live without them, and they can’t live without us. What does it mean if we accept that our human bodies co-evolved with their microbiomes? How does this effect our understanding of language, ethics, and responsibility in a more-than-human world?
Audible Bacillus proposes a reordering of our consciousness from the inside out. It attempts a description of things for which there is not yet much language, provides images for things we cannot see, and sounds for things we cannot hear. The exhibition points towards forms of knowledge beyond human reasoning. Artists in the exhibition include Vito Acconci, Ed Atkins, Lutz Bacher, Mary Helena Clark, lucky dragons, Sky Hopinka, Candice Lin, Yoko Ono, Falke Pisano and Camila Sposati, Lucy Skaer, Cauleen Smith, Josh Tonsfeldt, and Lawrence Weiner. Their works are presented alongside stromatolite fossils, bacterial ancestors of the earliest visible manifestation of life on Earth, on loan from the Joe Webb Peoples Museum and Collections, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan University. Stromatolites are also a view into a future—they were the dominant species on Earth for two billion years before they caused the Earth’s first, and their very own, mass extinction.
In a present time of mounting ecological crisis, Audible Bacillus investigates the potential of bringing awareness to our internal intersubjectivity. The exhibition presents this coexistence in a multiplicity of interpretations. The featured works are not scientific in their rhetoric, but are affective inquiries into the breakdown of the boundary between self/other, communication gaps, alternative epistemologies, the nature and source of volition, and into the radical care and empathy for self and other necessary to sustain our future.
Related Events
FREE!
Opening Reception
Tuesday, January 29, 2019 from 4:30pm to 6pm; Remarks by Curator Benjamin Chaffee at 5pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
Artist Talk: lucky dragons
Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 4:30pm
Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall, Room 003 (Daltry Room), 60 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
Guided Exhibition Tours
Saturdays, February 2 through March 2, 2019 at 1pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
The public can take a closer look at the exhibition by joining a 45-minute tour, led by Wesleyan University gallery guides. Tours begin in the lobby of the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. Public guided tours are for individuals and small groups up to ten people. Larger group visits can be arranged by emailing bchaffee@wesleyan.edu.
Lunchtime Reading Group
Tuesday, February 5, 2019 from 12:15pm to 1pm
Usdan University Center, Room 104D, 45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
Elizabeth Povinelli, “After the Last Man: Images and Ethics Of Becoming Otherwise“
Sherene Schostak, “Synchronicities” from Speculation, Now
Please email bchaffee@wesleyan.edu for access to the readings.
Exhibition Walkthrough
Tuesday, February 5, 2019 from 4:30pm to 5:30pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
With Smith Curator of Paleontology of the Joe Webb Peoples Museum of Natural History, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Integrative Sciences, and Research Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences Ellen Thomas; Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow for Writing in the Social Sciences Tess Bird; Professor of Art Jeffrey Schiff; and Curator and Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee.
Film Screening: “Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival” (2016)
Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 7:30pm
Powell Family Cinema, Center for Film Studies, 301 Washington Terrace, Middletown
Artist Talk: Sky Hopinka
Monday, February 18, 2019 at 4:30pm
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall, 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown
Lunchtime Reading Group
Tuesday, February 19, 2019 from 12:15pm to 1pm
Usdan University Center, Room 104D, 45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
Timothy Morton, “Subscendence”
Chris Sharp, “EXHIBITION MAKING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE”
Please email bchaffee@wesleyan.edu for access to the readings.
Exhibition Walkthrough
Tuesday, February 19, 2019 from 4:30pm to 5:30pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
With Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Julie Mulvihill; Associate Professor of History, Science in Society, Environmental Studies, and Chair and Associate Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Jennifer Tucker; and Curator and Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee.
Film Screening: “Ghostbusters II” (1989)
Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 7:30pm [DATE CHANGE]
Powell Family Cinema, Center for Film Studies, 301 Washington Terrace, Middletown
lucky dragons: Other Transformations Performance
Sunday, March 3, 2019 at 1pm
Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery
This performance will incorporate video projection by the Los Angeles-based experimental music group lucky dragons, an ongoing collaboration between Sarah Rara and Luke Fischbeck. The performance will feature a piece that lucky dragons have collaborated on with Wesleyan students. The group researches forms of participation and dissent, purposefully working towards a better understanding of existing ecologies through performances, publications, recordings, and public art, including sounds created in collaboration with the audience. The name “lucky dragons” is borrowed from a fishing vessel that was caught in the fallout from H-bomb tests in the mid-1950s, an incident which sparked international outcry and gave birth to the worldwide anti-nuclear movement.
Support for the exhibition provided by the Center for the Arts and the College of the Environment. lucky dragons’ presence is supported by the Creative Campus Initiative. Support provided by the College of Film and the Moving Image for the film screenings, and the Joe Webb Peoples Museum and Collections, Earth and Environmental Sciences for the loan of the stromatolites.
Listen to a conversation between Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee and Curator of the Davison Art Center Miya Tokumitsu about this exhibition on the Center for the Arts Radio Hour: