Christian Gonzenbach

Knowledge of the World

Knowledge of the World, 2007

Laser engraving on animal skins

17 x 15 cm (mice) and 144 x 78 cm (kangaroo)

Knowledge of the World is a series of engravings on the inside skin of small mammals, such as squirrel, polecat, marten, weasel, mole and opossum. These animals, flattened in their entirety like a bear rug, lend their skin for rather technical diagrams that kinetically relate to their behavioral patterns – for example, a fan is “tattooed” on skunk skin, a wheel on mouse, and a Pac-Man labyrinth on mole as if to leave clues to their life before the transformation into an object on the wall. In observation, it makes the viewer, a fellow mammal, question what their own tattoo (clue) might be.