In this series of ink drawings i pair up elements that do not necessarily belong together. Is mutation an evolution? This is a research in the world of objects, specimens, and their confluence. Great machines, machine men with lemon jellyfish. Here, Darwin examines a mixture of creatures that can not be categorized in the end because they are intermediate beings. So he rather goes on vacation. The Latin names come from the Vatican’s contemporary Latin-English dictionary.
Szemző is pretending to be innocent, making nice drawings, animation, meanwhile these fine drawings and sometimes pictorial yet stylized motifs - and not the less their titles: Organ trafficking, Darwin on holiday – reflect on bio-political questions and make a pass at scientific approach. In the animation Unpredictable variations for example, she gives scientific names to creatures (Machina Prudentia, Machina imperator) - whether they are ready or newly invented. Other times she plays with Darwin’s (obviously 19th century) theory. Darwin, who is now again an actuality, constructed the evolutionary system of species according to the rules of the capitalist economy rules - as “natural selection” and “rat race”. Szemző’s visually and conceptually sophisticated work - virtually - disrupt this order, as if she was dumping Pandora’s box only to show you: it includes only toys. Szemző’s drawn arsenal of objects and organisms evokes at once “science” and “fiction”, that is - today - the world of cyborgs. Erzsébet Tatai, art historian
"On the term Taxonomic relationship, we mean that in between the species there is a structural and general similarity. At the first crossing, the fertility of the resulting hybrids mainly depends on their taxonomic relationship. This is clearly shown by the fact that they have never raised a hybrid species that were classified in different families by the taxonomists, whereas the species very close to each other easily matched." from: Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species
2009
