Insecta - Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

It is no secret that insects are one Antennae’s favourite subjects. In 2007, the publishing of our first double issue
dedicated to insects firmly assessed Antennae as an alternative publication fierce enough to invest vast amounts of
publishing space on ‘underground themes’. Our ‘Insect Poetics’ volumes are still the most downloaded from our back
catalogue. However, insects still are a difficult subject: in mass-culture they are substantially organised through the
dichotomic division between ‘the useful’ and ‘the pest’. Whilst in the field of animal-studies they suffer from neglect as
great scrutiny is reserved to mammals and other animals that can return the gaze.
The emblematic moment in which Jacques Derrida, emerging from the shower, found himself being looked at
by his cat (another mammal), has predominantly shaped the methodologies and approaches of most of the past and
current academic speculation on animals and our relationships with them. The main questions triggered by the
encounter highlighted the presence of an insurmountable communicational abyss between man and animal. From this
point onward, the concept of the ‘return of the gaze’, extensively contributed to the revisioning of the animal
(mammals that is) from object to subject and more recently to ‘becoming’.
Discussing the return of the gaze in relation to a butterfly’s compound eyes seems however to reveal the
limitations involved in this approach. Is the abyss here too wide and too deep? Are there productive opportunities
involved in these encounters, exchanges and relationships too? In the attempt of bringing material forward that may be
used to answering these questions, this issue of Antennae looks at some of the most challenging and interesting
contemporary artists working with insects. The “excuse” for ‘Insecta’ to be released right now is Pestival 2009, “A
festival celebrating insects in art, and the art of being an insect” which took place at London’s Southbank Centre this
September. Pestival’s aim is to examine insect-human interactivity in bioscience through paradigms of contemporary art,
cinema, music and comedy as well as through direct scientific demonstration and educational projects.
We closely worked with Pestival’s Director Bridget Nicholls to interview a large number of artist involved in
the event. As a result we spent our time talking to artist Tessa Farmer, whose fairies continue to bewilder international
audiences. Never so much in my life, I have rubbed my eyes in front of an artist’s work! Together, we went to the
Natural History Museum in London to discuss insects, the infamous parasitic wasps, museum collections and displays
with entomologists Andy Polaszek and Gavin Broad. There, we also met with Amoret Whitaker, a forensic
entomologist and Mark Cockram, an artist/bookbinder, who together are working on a very interesting project involving
paper-eating beetles.
The issue takes Pestival as a platform to also present the work of internationally renowned artist Maria
Fernanda Cardoso, a leading Latin American artist who has built a reputation with her flea circus. ‘Insecta’ then takes us
to the bear fields surrounding Chernobyl’s nuclear power-station looking for heteropteras with Cornelia Hesse-
Honegger, whose stunningly executed watercolours functions as an interface between art and science playing witness
to a beautiful but endangered nature whilst generating awareness of the miniscule mutations that could be symptoms of
much bigger things to come. From Chernobyl to New York, Mysoon Rizk takes us through a truly fascinating
investigation of the presence of insects in the work David Wojnarowicz who is recognized as one of the most potent
artistic voices of his generation.
Mark Watson, who shot to ‘underground fame’ as founding member of the electronic music pioneers Cabaret
Voltaire in 1971 and is now one of the most prestigious sound-recordists in the world, talked to us about the challenges
and rewards of recording insects.
‘Insecta’ would have not been complete without an interview with Jan Fabre; one of the most eclectic artists on
the contemporary art scene, who since a show at The Louvre Museum in 2008, has entered the sphere of major artists
and is currently amongst those representing Belgium at the Venice Biennale 2009. In the middle of July, Julien Salaud,
one of our most dedicated Global Contributors, travelled to the beautiful city of Lion in France to talk insects,
metamorphosis, life and death with the artist.
Giovanni Aloi
Editor in Chief of Antennae Project
EDITORIAL
ANTENNAE ISSUE 11
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