Hybrids

What is a hybrid 

A hybrid means something of mixed origin or composition that adds variety or complexity to a system. In science, a hybrid is the offspring of genetically dissimilar plants or animals, especially produced by breeding or grafting different varieties or species. In language, a hybrid word is one whose elements are derived from different languages. In an automobile, a hybrid combines an electric motor with a gasoline engine. 

What would it mean to create a hybrid art form? 

In art forms, hybridity could mean the blurring of traditional distinct boundaries between artistic media such as painting, sculpture, film, performance, architecture, and dance. It also can mean cross-breeding art-making with other disciplines, such as natural and physical science, industry, technology, literature, popular culture, or philosophy. Hybrid art forms expand the possibilities for experimentation and innovation in contemporary art. 
Today’s artists are free to make art with whatever material or technique they can imagine. This freedom creates new opportunities to express ideas and concepts. It also opens up a number of challenges, choices, and decisions for artists:
Should I work to master a traditional art form or should I work to create innovative new art forms? Or should I do both?
Should I experiment with materials that are industrial or outside the scope of my studio if those materials seem to be the best way to express my artistic goals?
How can I define myself as an artist if I am shifting, combining, and recombining techniques from inside and outside the worlds of art?Blurring boundaries, breaking rules, and creating hybrids occupies much artistic work today. 

Hybrid creatures in taxidermy sculptures of Enrique Gomez Molina. Using the parts of once-living animals, de Molina hopes to bring awareness to the danger faced by a multitude of species: nuclear and chemical waste, over development and deforestation, to name a few. Genetic engineering and human intervention also accounts for the conceptualization of these surreal pieces. Enrique de Molina puts into question the possibilities artificial evolution that the future holds.

Doris Salcedo created hybrid sculptures by joining furniture that do not quite fit in to create a feeling of discordance , to convey the jarring sense of unease and displacement which resulted from the violence witnessed by people during the political turmoil of Columbian civil war. 

Bart Hess pushes the boundaries of the textile design profession: his designs transcend the craft, as Hess chooses to extend them via other media such as film, photography and animation. His futuristic materials and textures blur the boundary between textile and skin, human and new species.