Territories of the Hive: Rhythm, Care, and Interspecies Art in Jan Karpíšek’s Practice

This article develops rhythm as an aesthetic and ethical category for interpreting human–honeybee co-making in contemporary art. Combining philosophical close reading with a focused case study of Czech painter and beekeeper Jan Karpíšek, it brings together four perspectives on rhythm: Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s ritornello (rhythm as territorial ordering), György Lukács’s account of ornament (rhythm as visible proportion), John Dewey’s rhythm of experience and careful practice, and Haraway’s becoming-with (multispecies responsibility). Ethological studies of honeybee circadian organisation, communication, and comb construction ground the analysis and prevent “agency” from collapsing into metaphor. The case study shows how Karpíšek’s works emerge from repeated, situated interventions in the hive and from bees’ material responses to altered conditions. The paper argues that care in this context is neither a sentimental projection nor a property of the final object, but a practice of maintaining and renegotiating shared conditions of life. Rhythm renders these constraints perceptible as form, enabling a view of authorship that recognises nonhuman contribution without implying shared artistic intention.