Pica Pica Q&A Katja Prins. Human body and technology is an intimate relationship.
We are in Amsterdam. We are heading towards the red light district. There, the old cray artistic tenement house hides the workshop of a Dutch artist Katja Prins, who for 20 years has been presenting her works in Europe, the USA (Museum of Arts and Design, New York), Asia and Russia. The main gallery where you can see Katja’s work is Galerie Rob Koudijs in Amsterdam.
In your works you convey stories about the relationship of the human body and technology…
Yes. For quite some time, my work has been about the relationship between us, as human beings (our human bodies), and technology. When you think of it, this relationship is really intimate. Just look around you. It’s everywhere. We sleep, sit, eat, drink, move, and live with it. We even connect with each other through it. We heal our bodies with it, alter it, sculpt it, and more and more improve and enhance ourselves by it.
All this technology is changing our lives all the time. In the past, we were mostly focused with our technology on the outside world, and we have changed that a lot. Nowadays, we are much more focused on our inner world, on our brains and bodies, and this is changing human society a lot.
What doubts does it cause in you?
well, when you think of plastic surgery or smart drugs that improve our memory, gene-, DNA-, and stem-cell technologies, robotics, and nanotechnology: a lot of these technologies actually started out as treatments and medications to heal people, bring something back to “normal,” but nowadays, it’s more about improving/enhancing people and making them better than “normal.”
These developments raise questions. For instance what are all these improvements doing to our world and humanity? But on the other hand, has technology actually made us less human?
Isn’t technology a human thing?
Right! Didn’t we always use technology as a way to survive? I think we are technological creatures and to me, technology and being humans are not separated from each other. But, I find it totally interesting that they look very different from each other, which results in a certain tension, and that’s what I like.
This ambivalence intrigues me, and this is what I try to express in my work
In one of the interviews you said that you agree with the American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, who said that “art is supposed to mess everything up.”
Yes and I agree!. (laugh) I’m not interested in plain beauty and comforting things. I like the poetry of being puzzled and confused.
Things get so much more interesting when there’s some disturbance.
In my visual language, I use images, shapes, and materials that refer to this story that I’m telling about the natural and the artificial . How do we relate to this technology that we create?. My hope is that people can also discover their own story in my work. Therefor, I steer clear of too many explanations and too much direct clarification.
Where do you look for inspiration?
Everywhere! My fascination for this topic is an on-going thing. A lot of things that I do, read, visit, and see are related to this. There’s no beginning or end in my “research.”
I have read a lot of books and articles related to my topic. One of the best lately was a book by Dutch technology philosopher Peter-Paul Verbeek “The limitations of human beings: about technology, ethics, and human nature”. It’s so interesting, I can absolutely recommend it to you…
Oh, thank you. Where else do you look and “research”?
The Internet and Google are great research items. I can go on for hours, from one page to another link, get totally lost, and bump into the most interesting things.
In the mean time the search for the right materials is also ongoing, and for images, forms etc.
To me art-jewelry or contemporary jewelry is a medium of art, just like an art movie is, or an art-photo or an art-painting.
It should tell an interesting ‘story”.
Shifting Perspectives is your latest collection…
Yes, my latest body of work, “ Shifting Perspectives”, is referring to architecture, groundplans, technical drawings, our urban surroundings and cityscapes with their technical realm, and the shifting of perspectives and/or scale in between.
But also think of a look that has been shifting away from the body, going from inside to outside.
All this derives from being fascinated by the fact that Man, and more in particular his body, is the measure of all things that we build, create and surround ourselves with.
What are your plans for the coming year?
To make lot’s of, hopefully, good work!
I just finished my latest solo show “Shifting Perspective” which was on view at Galerie Rob Koudijs and there are some new things evolving in my mind but all is still too early to say anything about it…:-)
