Uršula Berlot, (b. Ljubljana, 1973) studied philosophy at the Faculty of Arts for two years, then painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Ljubljana, and at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She received her PhD in 2010 at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, where she has been teaching since 2009 at the Chair of Theoretical Studies.
Uršula Berlot works as a visual artist, art theorist and lecturer, whose interests lie at the intersections of art, science and philosophy. Her artistic practice focuses on the invisible and immaterial aspects of reality, and often employ technologically advanced optical research tools (radiology, microscopy) in her explorations of the liminal aspects of perception. Her experimental and research-based art practice extends across various media and genres, such as light and kinetic installations, video, drawings and virtual (mixed reality) art. In her video, light and kinetic work, Berlot investigates various forms and expressions of psycho-emotional spaces, the aesthetic and technical potential of simulated nature, and the relationships between mind, body and media.
Her artistic practice often draws inspiration from scientific concepts and modelings of physicality, focusing on natural phenomena and the formative processes behind them, such as gravity, crystallization and vaporization. While some of her work builds on explorations of magnetism, ferrofluid dynamics and simulations of the natural using (artificial) artistic means and media (Observatories 2014-2016, Fluid Topography 2014), her more recent projects employ electron microscopy and nano-scale visualizations (Inverse space 2017, Polymorphic Imprint 2017, Bodyfraction 2020), all of which were developed in collaboration with physicists from the Jožef Stefan Institute – Department for Nanostructured Materials). These explorations of microscopic-level and nano-scale dimensions touch on certain macrocosmic questions related to our awareness of space and time, and perception of matter, life and being.
A significant part of her artistic research is devoted to the phenomenon of embodied perception, the subjective experience of reality and heightened forms of perception and awareness. Her interest in phenomenology of perception, neuroscience and cognitive sciences is expressed in both her artistic practice and her theoretical research. Based on the use of radiological medical technology (MRI scans, tractography) and in collaboration with neuroscientists (Clinical Institute of Radiology, University Medical Center of Ljubljana) she has created hybrid art forms and perceptually challenging video installations such as Pulsation, Introspection (Kaleidoscopic Gaze, Spiral Floating) and Fibertract Kaleidoscope. These dematerialized site-specific video installations, characterized by highly aestheticized technologism re-contextualize the results of medical diagnostic techniques and express them in the domain of art. Like her earlier light and kinetic installations (Reflective Transitoriness 2006, Reflection 2006), they are motivated by the idea of unsettling the viewer's common comprehension of space, time, matter, and subjectivity through the creation of a challenging sensory, spatial and optical frame capable of inducing specific perceptional states of heightened reflexivity and (self)awareness.
Berlot has also addressed these topics in her theoretical research into neuroaesthetics, in her exploration of consciousness through the notions of embodied simulation, intuition and intersubjectivity in the process of creating and experiencing art (Intuition in Contemporary Art, 2017; Neuroart, Neuroaesthetics and the Question of Consciousness, 2016; Space and Spectator: Embodied Perception in the Art of Installation, 2018; Pictorial Abstractions: Visualizing Space in the Eras of Modernism and Information, 2018).
Alongside these topics, her theoretical research also focuses on certain questions related to traditional aesthetics: the question of representation, simulation and mimesis in art, the conceptualization of minimal difference in the process of aesthetic discernment, and questions related to the intricate relationship between model and copy; and mirroring and duplication in the process of reproduction (Minimal Difference and Modern Mimesis, 2016; Duchamp and Mimesis, 2011; The Space of Infrathin Difference: Non-similar Similarity in Duchamp’s Art, 2010). Other writings include Biomimesis and Contemporary Art (2011), Art Between the Natural, Technological and Mental (2009), Aspects of Light in Contemporary Visual Art and Architecture (2004), and The Idea of Nature in Contemporary Art (2002).
Uršula Berlot has received several awards for her work (Schering Stiftung and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien art residency, Berlin, 2007; Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York, 2005; KulturKontakt art residency and Henkel Youth Artist Award, Vienna, 2004). Her work has been exhibited at Today Art Museum in Beijing, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, BA-CA Kunstforum Tresor in Vienna, Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Other important exhibitions include ‘Extra/Ordinary’ Plug-in New Media Art – Contemporary Istanbul (Istanbul, 2018), Museo Illuminato, Museo Revoltella (Trieste, 2013), 3rd Quadrilateral Biennial: Media Art – Angles and Intersections, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Rijeka, 2009), Sci-Art, Gallery Enrico Astuni (Bologna, 2009), Glow 08: Forum of Light in Art and Architecture (Eindhoven, 2008), Transmediale 08: Conspire, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin 2008), and Art’Fab: l’Art-la Femme-L’Europe (Saint-Tropez, 2006).