ANNE HÖLCK
L’HIPPOPOTAME 2022/23
Artistic research project on a copperplate engraving from the Histoire Naturelle
Mixed media installation on a table: #scapel, object study (2022), scalpel, wooden disc (50x50cm), minibeamer projection diashow (9min). #hippoarchive (2022) index box, colour copies, metal bowl, umbilical clamp, tweezers, linen cloth. #glass, object study (2023) cylindrical glass, water, laser cutting/engraving on acrylic glass, turn table, minibeamer projection diashow (5min.), videoloop on tablet (3min). #waterland, VR film (2023) with soundtrack (6 min). #nature morte, photo series (2024) digital prints.
As a speculative experiment, my project explores the possibilities of artistic approaches to virtually immerse oneself in the pictorial space of the copperplate engraving L‘Hippopotame (1764). Created by Jacques de Sève and published in Volume XII of the encyclopedia Histoire Naturelle, edited by the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) et.al, the engraving is portraying both, the body of a hippopotamus fetus and the naturalists‘ working environment.
Through the lens of multispecies storytelling, my installative setups focus particularly on the interactions between the animal‘s body on the dissecting table and the surrounding objects to include their agency in the experience of the engraving. In line with contemporary art-historical and cultural-scientific research on the early modern period, I understand knowledge production as a collective process involving both human and non-human actors.
Drawing on methods from Animal Studies I have adopted an ‘anti-reductive strategy’ using analog and digital media to emphazises themes of presence and absence of the hippopotamus fetus’s body during the processes of natural science research. Reconsidering how experiences of animal bodies are positioned in knowledge production, the installation L’Hippopotame invites reflection on non-anthropocentric perspectives of animal representations.
Credits: #waterland, VR film (2023): 3D design in cooperation with Nieves de la Fuente; #nature morte, photo series (2024): in cooperation with Bernhard Draz.
Supported by Academy of Media Arts Cologne
(Fellowship) and Fonds Darstellende Künste NeustartKultur
Image credits: L’Hippopotame, copperplate, Jacques de Sève (1764), in: G.-L. Buffon (Hg.), Histoire Naturelle, Bd. XII, T. 3, S.68. All photos ©️ Anne Hölck
