The Flux Under Under Your Skin

1 – 29 NOV 2023

Focus Terra – ETH Zürich, Sonneggstrasse 5, 8006 Zurich

The Exhibition was a collaboration between the artist Susanne M. Winterling and Simone Schürle-Finke who is a professor of Responsive Biomedical Systems. Vanessa Moos curated this special, one-off art-science project at ETH Zürich.

The complex healing processes of the human body exist outside most people’s comprehension. For all their intrinsic importance to continued physical health, the movement of bacteria and the biomedical technologies of cancer research remain hidden and unknown. Aiming to demystify these processes, Susanne M. Winterling’s immersive new art installation at Focus Terra at ETH Zurich allows visitors to assume the role of bacteria, traveling with it on a journey through the body.

Drawing on video game imagery, the exhibition gives an unprecedented insight into the tightly intertwined fibres of human tissue. Applying the research of Prof. Simone Schürle, and her investigations into whether bacteria can be used as drug carriers. The visitor turns into the role of nanocarrier, steering a bacteria with a medicine backpack on their mission to transport targeted drugs directly into cancerous tumours.
The exhibition is fully interactive and immersive, with the gallery environment heated to 37°C – mimicking the ideal temperature for bodily processes and providing a multi-sensory experience to visitors. The outer shell of the installation, with its blue and green cancer and bacteria cells, is reminiscent of a vast dark universe – a cosmos of energy, illuminated by sudden, sparkling points of light. Oscillating between the representational and the abstract, this large-scale installation challenges us to perceive the world around us differently and to intuitively consider processes that lie outside our direct experience. The exhibition “flux under your skin” was curated by Dr. Vanessa Moos, founder of MOOS fine art gallery.

An artist’s edition has been published to accompany the exhibition. For inquiries please contact: mail@moosfineart.com