Joey Holder —

TETRAGRAMMATON

Thinking about how nature is ‘networked’ through both human and non-human nodes, I am interested in the way that network theories, complexity theory and emergence are related to ‘organic’ as well as ‘synthesised’ systems and the point which the two diverge. As humans we construct systems of language, symbols and diagrams to communicate and understand the complexities of the world around us. These various diagrams and data visualisations illustrate our constant desire to order and make sense of the world, yet they abstract from any sense of a ‘natural’ order, forming their own closed systems. Performing the function of measurement, these diagrams are inflexible units used to split up and portion organic matter. In my work I mix elements of biology, nanotechnology and natural history against program interfaces, screen savers and measuring devices. I am interested at the point in which the systems and hierarchies could become as varied in their form as the organic processes they try to illustrate. My work reflects a mutating reality, avoiding simple identification and comforting classification.

Joey Holder graduated from Kingston University in 2001 and completed an MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2010.
Working with scientific and technical experts she makes immersive, multi-media installations that explore the limits of the human and how we experience non-human, natural and technological forms. Mixing elements of biology, nanotechnology and natural history against computer programme interfaces, screen savers and measuring devices, she suggests the impermanence and inter-changeability of these apparently contrasting and oppositional worlds: ‘everything is a mutant and a hybrid’.

Joey Holder, The Evolution of the Spermalege, 2015, Digital prints, 3D printed insect penis, dimensions variable, courtesy of the artis