MONICA C. LoCASCIO

ARTIST STATEMENT

Our bodies are the product of millions of years of R&D through intra-species symbiosis and gene swapping. Our brains construct our conscious experience from only a sliver of the information available to us through our senses, discarding and transforming information at every stage, and yet we call that abstract a “reality”. How might we tune in, with these marvelous antennas of ours, to expand our definition of the "real”?

I make works that question how invisible phenomena intra-act with bodies. Made from fiber, bio-materials, and found objects, they look like waves, space-time, portals, totems, organisms and organs.

I want to understand how information is held in materials and if I can read it with my fingers, collaborate with microorganisms to expand the already viscous boundaries of “me” and “mine”, and unearth the potential of one small gesture to code the shape of the future(s).

My work engages material, theoretical, and choreographic research practices, and spans such topics as theoretical quantum physics, epigenetics and DNA’s capacity to store and transmit memory, symbiotic evolutionary theory, and gendered labor and techno histories.

I work with fiber that I’ve salvaged from the collections of deceased individuals and abandoned factories, and incorporate found objects with historical or sentimental meaning. I grow bio-films using ancient fermentation processes, harvest and preserve them through performative gestures, and then employ them as patterns and backgrounds for my embroideries. I crochet and embroider with hyperbolic, exponential, and intuitive patterns to visualize information hidden in embedded materialities.

BIOGRAPHY

Monica C. LoCascio is a transdisciplinary artist who transforms salvaged materials into sculptural works that arrive as artifacts of her material and theoretical research on “invisible phenomena” such as consciousness, microbiology, theoretical physics, and hierarchies of knowledge and power. LoCascio began her art-making practice at the age of 5 when she was taught to crochet and embroider by her grandfather's twin sister.

Raised internationally, she completed her undergraduate studies in New Media & Visual Arts at Emerson College, Boston, with honors. After a decade of working in cultural production and publishing in NYC, she earned a Master’s degree in Art & Science from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, also with honors. Her art has been featured at significant venues internationally such as the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Science Gallery in London, Skopje - Museum of Contemporary Art, and the ERES Stiftung in Munich. She lives and works in Vienna, Austria.