#02 Mitochronia : Participants : David Ian Bickley
'Eternal Flame'. Video still. 2026
'Eternal Flame' explores the primal energy that animates life at the level of the cell, drawing on the mitochondrial “fire” that fuels every living organism. The work approaches this biological process as a kind of ancient ritual—an unbroken ceremony of transformation that has continued, silently and relentlessly, for billions of years.
Through a shifting split-screen composition, the piece layers motion graphics, manipulated micrographic imagery, and textured visual fields to evoke the rhythmic, cyclical nature of cellular life. These flickering forms resemble ritual gestures repeated across deep time: the metabolic dance of ignition, conversion, and renewal.
The soundscape deepens this sense of ceremony. Hydrophonic recordings of freshwater ponds by Dr. Jack Greenhalgh—stretched, distorted, and re-voiced— summon the aquatic origins of early cells, creating an aural environment reminiscent of a submerged ritual site. These organic tones interlace with recordings of electrical interference, blending the sacred hum of biology with the charged crackle of contemporary technology, as though the ceremony of life continues even amid digital noise.
Footage of fire, swamps, and bogland expands the work’s temporal reach into mythic territory. Fire operates both as symbol and substance: a visual invocation of the mitochondrial spark, a flame that must forever be tended within the body. The swamps and bogs—slow, breathing landscapes—serve as primordial altars, referencing Earth’s earliest biochemical crucibles where life first stirred. In these environments, every ripple, ember, and drifting vapour feels like part of an ongoing rite.
In 'Eternal Flame', energy becomes more than a scientific process; it becomes a ritual lineage. Each cell participates in an ancient ceremony of combustion passed down from ancestral organisms. By interweaving biology, landscape, sound, and interference, the work invites viewers to experience life’s internal fire not just as a mechanism, but as a sacred inheritance—fragile, perpetual, and quietly luminous.
My practice investigates hidden biological worlds and their impact on human imagination. Fire in the Cell examines mitochondria as the ancient fire that powers all life—a bacterial inheritance still burning within us. Through immersive moving image and sound, the work seeks to reveal the internal cosmic landscape that makes existence possible, echoing both the wonder of Victorian microscopy and the ecological insights of contemporary microbiology.
David Ian Bickley (b. 1961) is an Anglo-Irish artist, filmmaker and musician who uses analogue and digital technology and techniques to conjure audio-visual works and installations that delve into realms of nature, landscape, mythology and symbolism. His works are abstracted, process-led and textured, capturing the essence of places and stories using memory, feeling and digital alchemy. His works also use landscape as a form to reflect and process mythic and folklore motifs, creating a sense of animation and accelerated time-scale. His practice incorporates film, music, video, immersive environments and sound art.
Website: http://www.davidianbickley.com