Sarcistry

 

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Welded steel, glass, strong alkaline solution, minerals of porcine bone, hair, bovine tissue, electric current, nylon, current meters

An installation for the exhibition Chromo/some. 

About

We willingly and at times unknowingly subject our bodies to the chemical and technological processes of science and engineering yet are unaware of the relationship between our bodies and the tools of these disciplines. This installation explored the similarities between the material and architecture of our living bodies and processes found in engineering. Three stations were displayed in the gallery which presented timed processes involving the insertion of organic materials into defined technical and chemical processes. The displays used referred to the laboratory tools of science.

In one, electric current was generated by dissolving the protein in hair, in a strong alkaline solution. These absurd “hair batteries” were placed together in a bank, to increase the amount of current they could generate. Their output triggered a process which created, mimicked or altered organic forms of body, (all found in supermarkets).

In another station porcine bones were extended through a plating process and electrodes, by forcing current through the chemicals of bone in a solution, causing a form to grow.

These processes involved a variation of a 19th century “plating” technology, but were used with organic materials. This same processes–although much more complex and refined because of our technologies–are being carried out in the creation of nano circuits in solution which are being designed as implants to be placed within the human body. It was this latter process that inspired this work.  Using the old 19th century processes produced something visceral, that is missing from the nanotechnology work.

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