THINKING OF INVERTEBRATES (2017) – NABB+TEERI

Thinking of Invertebrates (2017)
3D animation, runtime 30 min

Thinking of Invertebrates is built around travel diary entries from a residency period in Serbia that are coupled with 3D animation sequences. The work is a seamless combination of documentary diary entries and digital fantasy. The spoken text and the visuals connect occasionally, drift apart and become joined again later. The animated 3D objects and scenes based on photogrammetry give a visual form to creatures and landscapes that are ordinarily hidden from our senses, but are now observable with the aid of machine vision. One of the recurring themes in the piece is the encounter between invertebrates and other creatures.

8 September/ In the botanical gardens, a bank has sponsored a flowerbed and a telecommunications company a park bench, the historical greenhouse has been renovated with EU money. Indoors, a woman waters plant beds with a garden hose. I find the fungi growing on the rotten wood between the labelled plants most impressive. Some of the mushrooms look like small, soil-coated almond potatoes. One minuscule pale-yellow fungus, decorative like a hedgehog mushroom, is washed invisible with the pressure of the water from the hose. In the cactus room, a Stapelia grandiflora is opening its buds. A dark squirrel hides hazelnuts from its cheek pouches into a plastic flowerpot by the building.

Nabb+Teeri is an artist duo formed in 2008 by Finnish artists Janne Nabb (b. 1984) and Maria Teeri (b. 1985). Their layered and polymorphic works are compositions based on somewhat messy encounters, interactions, and fusions between the artists and other things. Nabb+Teeri work with material surplus of both human and non-human activity. Alongside of found materials and objects, their stratified, mesh-like works include elements created with 3D modelling or other digital technologies. These often ephemeral works change their form throughout long processes.

Nabb+Teeri are graduates of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki (MFA, 2011). They work together since late 2008. Recent exhibitions include mesh /mɛʃ/ at EMMA, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, FI (2015), and The Leftovers of An Unknown Party at Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova, Turku, FI and Tampere Art Museum, FI (2014) in the occasion of being awarded Young Artists of the Year