BIOGRAPHY

Kai Lossgott is a contemporary artist and poet whose personal practice currently focuses on exploring green politics and systems theory through experimental film, performance and drawing, for instance his engravings in plant leaves. He is also known for his public performance collaborations on the Spier Contemporary 2007, Infecting the City 2009, the Badilisha Poetry X-change 2009, and Cape 09.

His individual investigations since 2007 have focused on living systems, fascinated by convergences in ecology, neurology and linguistics. He is interested in biophysical language patterns and the vulnerable instincts which drive them - silence, sensitivity and acts of sensing. In a human-centred world, his aim is most often to work from a life-centred perspective, influenced by the philosophy of Deep Ecology.

Born in Germany in 1980, he lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. As a teenager at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg, he studied sculpture and painting. He holds a BJourn from Rhodes University, majoring in documentary filmmaking and dance theatre, an Advanced Diploma in Visual Arts from UNISA, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town, all three cum laude. He is bored and frustrated with the grammar of conventional film and works to transcend and re-invent its language. Kai’s work has been widely exhibited as part of numerous South African art award shows, and shown at major experimental film festivals on five continents. He has lectured at various South African universities, as well as facilitating community arts initiatives.

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