Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Video Space.
Flis Holland, Subserotic Bulge 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist. Image courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts; photo: Colin Conces.
Subserotic Bulge (still), 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
Subserotic Bulge (still), 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
Subserotic Bulge (still), 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
The video docu-fiction Subserotic Bulge is the latest in a series of works in which Flis Holland, a former asteroid defense systems researcher, explores a new relationship to meteorites and asteroids. Informed by sci-fi, the video tells the story of the artist’s repurposing of bio-eaters, or rock-eating microbes, as they ingests the asteroid defense life form. The story goes like this: In 2019, an iron meteorite was filed to dust, stirred into cream, and fed to 36 people. Soon after, Flis Holland’s uterus was rife with tumors. Their belly swelled as a fleshy block pushed its way out at astonishing speed. From the first finger poke to WebMD and x-rays, every diagnostic came up short, culminating in the catastrophic failure of an MRI scan. But Holland’s telling of it is rather different from the medical notes.
Flis Holland is an artist and former space engineer who currently lives in Helsinki where they are completing a Doctorate in Fine Art (DFA) at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality is their first exhibition in the United States.
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Video Space.
Flis Holland, Subserotic Bulge 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist. Image courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts; photo: Colin Conces.
Subserotic Bulge (still), 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
Subserotic Bulge (still), 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
Subserotic Bulge (still), 2021. Video, 17:42 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
The video docu-fiction Subserotic Bulge is the latest in a series of works in which Flis Holland, a former asteroid defense systems researcher, explores a new relationship to meteorites and asteroids. Informed by sci-fi, the video tells the story of the artist’s repurposing of bio-eaters, or rock-eating microbes, as they ingests the asteroid defense life form. The story goes like this: In 2019, an iron meteorite was filed to dust, stirred into cream, and fed to 36 people. Soon after, Flis Holland’s uterus was rife with tumors. Their belly swelled as a fleshy block pushed its way out at astonishing speed. From the first finger poke to WebMD and x-rays, every diagnostic came up short, culminating in the catastrophic failure of an MRI scan. But Holland’s telling of it is rather different from the medical notes.
Flis Holland is an artist and former space engineer who currently lives in Helsinki where they are completing a Doctorate in Fine Art (DFA) at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality is their first exhibition in the United States.