my
arTificial
( w O mb )
Part of "Precarious Circumstances"
group exhibition with the QM&A Artist Collective
I am human. I am lost.
Since we were born, since we left the womb of our mothers, we feel naked and defenceless.
We built encompassing incubators: houses, cities, civilizations, immune systems,
borders between you - my microbial ancestors - and me.
Baby SCOBY (Symbiotic Cultures Of Bacteria & Yeast) in Artificial Womb - detail
Fermenting cultures of bacteria & yeast, making more
acrylic glass womb
-
2021-22
Bacteria merged to create humans cells. They are what we grew from. They date back almost 4 billion years, while we, homo sapiens, emerged only yesterday on earth’s scale, about 300.000 years ago. Some of those ancient microbes still guide us today. They are on and in and around us.
SCOBY biofilms in glass with embalming fluid
February 2022
"My womb" is a symbol of connection. The fantastic apparatus allows me to make contact- and fuse with my other-than-human kin. It helps to rehabilitate a bond to those that were at the very beginning of life. No other human experience comes close to the symbiotic state of connection to another being than growing a child within the safe borders of your own body. But then it is "my artificial womb". It is a technically induced, externalized intimacy. My bodily fluids mingle with the symbiotic mothercultures of the bacteria and yeast. I inhale the vapors and steams of this process of life. We care for each other, we contaminate each other. We communicate, although there is this "artifact", through this artifact, the artificial, the cultured, we become with eachother.
Video of: Precarious Circumstances
Question Me & Answer Artist Collective 2021
Shot & edited by Miloš Vučićević.
my artificial w O mb
a posthuman birth
a birth out of fermentation,
symbiosis,
& interspecies care
Acrylic glass womb on metall foot, Baby SCOBY & amniotic fluid
Funnel with dried SCOBY cellulose
Tubes with mother's milk
-
2021-22
MOTHER CULTURES
Mother Culture under skin
sundried leather from symbiotic cultures of bacteria & yeast,
text, lightbox
2021
CULTURING
INCUBATING
SCOBY Mother Cultures
Symbiotic Cultures Of Bacteria & Yeast
In the front SCOBY in glass, in the back SCOBY incubator
see also video above