Martin uit den Bogaard
Apeldoorn, NL, 1944 Works and lives in Antwerpen
Martin uit den Boogaard studied at the Amsterdam School of the Arts and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Much of his work has been purchased by the Verbeke Foundation in Kemzeke, Belgium.
The difference between life and death is Martin uit den Bogaard’s point of departure for bio-art. He uses dead animals, often embryos, as basic material. In 2003 he discovered that he could transform electric impulses from dead organic material into computer images. In his installations he makes use of the energy released during the process of decay. This is how, for example, a cephalopod, a finger and a kangaroo were able to sing and paint through a computer screen.
Uit den Boogaard shows us that material not only from living creatures, but also from dead ones, is in a continual state of flux. Organisms are continually changing, even dead ones. Apparently, the border between life and death is not as definitive as we think. Though Uit den Boogaard’s works may seem lugubrious, at the same time they are illustrative of the reassuring, almost poetic, idea that death should not necessarily be regarded as the end.
Martin uit den Bogaard at the opening of Transformation