It’s all about hands
Series: THE EPISTEMIC GRIP
Material: Fine-Art-Print, Alu-Dibond
Dimensions: 89 x 100 cm
Year: 2026
Lim.: 9 (1 AP)
Jury Distinction for "It’s all about hands" at the SNSF Scientific Image Competition 2026
Abstract
This large-scale conceptual and research photograph provides the clinical-scientific evidence anchoring the overarching project The Epistemic Grip. Employing the visual vocabulary of forensics, the work documents the artist’s hands actively engaged in the forensic-morphological reconstruction of a fossil hominin hand out of plasticine. This high-contrast arrangement bridges the chasm between university-level research (paleoanthropology, evolutionary morphology) and physical sculptural practice. Awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the image functions as the definitive theoretical locus of the entire series.
Deep Dive: Conceptual Insight
The image breaks radically with purely documentarian photography by utilizing the structural principle of mise en abyme (a picture within a picture): it visualizes the act of making about the act of making. Captured are the hands of sculptor and researcher Mario Tischhauser as they physically overwrite scientific data concerning the prehistoric grip into malleable plasticine. The photograph proves that art within this framework is not a decorative end product, but a primary epistemological tool. It crystallizes the exact threshold where the hand becomes the active mediator between millions of years of evolutionary morphology and contemporary artistic production.
For more information please visit: mariotischhauser.com
