A mosquito bites a human. Ouch. But it also bites an animal, a reptile, an amphibian, a bird, even a fish. Humans are not exceptional in (op)position to the mosquito. Even mosquitoes are more intelligent than we would think. They certainly won’t just let themselves be exterminated. How is it possible that such a small organism is so sophisticated? And why do mosquitoes even exist if nobody likes them? Not just humans, but animals too? Because of them: cows milk less and reindeer migrate thousands of kilometers. They carry viruses – for humans and non-humans alike. And some of them are deadly.
The mosquito as a concept is a hyperobject. It defies human understanding. We cannot relate to it. Yes, we can complain about mosquitoes, and even fight them, but we still don’t understand the last reason why. Ontologically, we are groping. Yes, it is experimentally verified that female mosquitoes suck the blood they need to produce eggs. Is that a good enough reason? Is it for eros and for thanatos, the instinct of life and death? After all, we’re not much more sophisticated than mosquitoes at this. Life begets life begets life. Everything that can reproduce, and it reproduces even at the expense of other creatures. It multiplies and eats until it is beyond the point of self-sustainability. But that sounds suspiciously familiar…
https://kunsthallebratislava.sk/en/program/michal-mitro-komarnenie/
A mosquito survives underground for seven years. How long does a human last? Let’s talk about all this on a nice afternoon. And in doing so, we’ll show you what a mosquito larva looks like, what the pellet that kills it looks like, and what it looks like when those pellets fall from the sky. I’m looking forward to that! 🙂
The event was part of A Plant program which Kunsthalle Bratislava has been running as series of events since 2022. A Plant is a curatorial programme by Lydia Pribišová dealing with environmental issues resonating in the urban space. Find out more here:
https://kunsthallebratislava.sk/en/program/michal-mitro-komarnenie/
