When a pandemic shuts down her laboratories and temples, modern art finds new ways to spill over and engage with the world. In the Battery, the beating heart of LABIOMISTA, artist Koen Vanmechelen launches The Battery Channel. With this truck and audiovisual channel, Vanmechelen continues his artistic quest for meaning, identity, diversity and community in sounds, syllables and imaging.
From the 5th of May, a truck will be parked on the LABIOMISTA parking lot, which normally transports the artist's exhibitions worldwide. "Mobile became immobile," says Vanmechelen. “The van becomes a work of art itself, as a symbol of connection. It is stationed on the parking lot so that passers-by can view a new work every week.
The first exhibition is entitled S.O.S. and consists of works that have previously been exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The Planetary Community Chickens and the associated Book of Genome; a DNA book of the crossbreed. The chicken's chromosone pairs were also translated into a Morse code.
Initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic, the artist invites you inside his overactive but quarantined brain and takes you with him on his journey of discovery. With a brand new podcast, you follow how his mind is fecundated by the various people he involves in his ecosystem and how his newly discovered knowledge gets translated into unusual associations and artistic expression.
On the Battery Channel Website, guerrilla style imagery and sound visualise how Vanmechelen continues to operate in quarantine and provide a glimpse of his evolving work and studio.
Discover more on The Battery Channel
Vanmechelen's performance The Worth of Life forms the inspiration for the pilot of The Battery Channel podcast. A conversation on the topic with curator Didi Bozzini (IT), intermezzos from behavioral ecologist Hans Van Dyck, reflections from the artist and an end note by actor Tom Van Dyck are the ingredients of this first episode, hosted by Nathalie Delporte.
Listen to the podcast!
