What does it mean to take Animals, Plants, and Machines seriously when engaging in hybrid natures such as bioart, plant-art, taxidermy art and cyborgs in contemporary art?  Traditionally within art history the focus has been on human culture as the fundamental underpinning for cultural behaviour and productions, consequently rendering animal and plant histories invisible from the analysis of artworks. In this thesis I attend to the bodies of animals, plants, and machines put in the context of the zooësis (places/contact zones) of these bodies as biopolitical aesthetics (aesthetic bodies/objects) in contemporary art. Followingly, also attending to the histories of animals, plants, and machines in human societies and culture.  Situated within the interdisciplinary field of Human-Nonhuman-Animal Studies, or Anthrozoology, the aim in this thesis is to examine the meaning of animals, plants, and machines beyond representation, symbolism and mythology in contemporary art. In other words, this thesis analyses the representations of animal, plant, and cyborg bodies as actant aesthetic (organic and mechanical) objects, in art, literature, and media. Particular focus is payed to the hybrid natures founded in the taxidermy art of Berlinde De Bruyckere; in the bioart and transgenic plant-art of Špela Petrič; in the hybrid hyperrealist sculptures and bioethics of Patricia Piccinini; and in the hybrid artifacts, or “technoanimalism” of Tove Kjellmark.

Il s’agit de s’interroger à partir de notre pratique plastique qui s’intègre dans l’Art Végétal, sur le statut, la fonction et le processus créateur du proto-matériau végétal dans les œuvres contemporaines. Ce travail analyse la capacité du déchet, d’une épluchure de fruit ou de légume à convoquer certains savoir-faire, procédés techniques s’intégrant dans un proto-langage artistique. Ce principe créateur végétal interroge de manière paradoxale la notion de conservation créatrice à partir de matériaux ordinaires et éphémères. Ces dispositifs de préservation de fragments végétaux créent un espace olfactif, tactile et visuel qui rend hommage à la nature précaire. La mobilité d’un espace utopique spatio-temporel se fonde sur la fragmentation de téguments qui constituent la base de structures architecturales nourries d’une double pensée : occidentale et extrême orientale. Mes œuvres interrogent l’éthique écologique d’un contexte occidental de surconsommation par la fragilité de fragments de vanité. / It is a question of our plastic practice, which integrates with the plant Art, on the status, function and creative process of the proto-material in contemporary works. This work analyses the capacity of waste, a fruit or vegetable peel to summon certain know-how, technical processes integrating into an artistic proto-language.This plant-creative principle paradoxically questions the notion of creative conservation from ordinary and ephemeral materials. These devices for preserving plant fragments create an olfactory, tactile and visual space that pays homage to the precarious nature.The mobility of a spatial-temporal utopian space is based on the fragmentation of integuments which form the basis of architectural structures nourished by a twofold thought: Western and Far Eastern. My works question the ecological ethic of a Western context of overconsumption by the fragility of vanity fragments.