Honeybees, among other insects, use the Earth’s magnetic fields for navigation. A tiny particle called “magnetite” is naturally crystalized in their body cells and works as a compass. Its octahedral shapes fall into necklace-like strings in many different animal species and organisms, including humans. We have it in our cerebellum and brain stem. But somehow, we cannot access this instrument, we cannot feel or sense the way bees do. But there are theories that we could.
We will have magnetite rocks and smaller grades to almost dust for a hands-on workshop. We will test it with magnets. And we will try to imagine what would that be like, to choreograph a sense to work, to switch it on.
Dr. Ruta Spelskyte is an artist, researcher, and lecturer at Vilnius Academy of Arts. She works with alchemical structures, creating pigments, liquids, and shamanic instruments based on true and fictional stories. Her work explores living organisms, in the attempt to find balance between usage and cohabitation, imagining future worlds of intraactivity and extro science fiction. At the moment her main interest is in human geology and the octahedral geometry of magnetite.
In three different workshops, Dr. Spelskyte will introduce three different bugs and their unique properties, and explore how we use and learn from them.
Supported by the Lithuanian Culture Institute.