ABSTRACT

My Dirty Diary of Recombinant Dispositions raises questions towards social reflections in body politics by interrogating the relationship between the human microbiome that one’s body hosts and the agency one has over said aggregate of microorganisms. Through regular and consistent swabbing, microbiogical material from the artist and the bodies the artist has intimate contact with are captured and encased in agar agar gel. These materials are then archived while their origins are documented and transferred on vinyl strips. The processes of capturing, archiving and displaying these microbodies are at play with one another as the materials transform from biological (at the stage of conception and formation) to artificial (at the stage of exhibition and installation). This shift acts to reclaim the materiality that colonizes the body as the colonized can now seize and repurpose the bodies once settling theirs. When using DNA, cells or proteins as the medium and means, the artist is faced with the ethical implications of reducing life to art. My Dirty Diary of Recombinant Dispositions is above all a provoking reminder that how life and living matter is demonstrated and exhibited dictates how it is appreciated, used and eventually disposed of.

ON PURPOSE & RATIONALE

We all use our bodies as sites in which to express and inscribe a plethora of endeavours, including markings of power, desire, gender, beauty, fitness, health, pleasure. At the same time, there is a high risk of the body being a site of commodification, display and production. My purpose is to perform an act of resistance towards becoming a non-instrumentalized and non-commodified body in a period of hyper-globalization and capitalism.

Navigatingnew ways of resisting market forces of commodification and privatization hasbeen so wonderfully undertaken by many activists and artists. My Dirty Diary of RecombinantDispositions heavily relies on tactical biopolitics of love, creating life and sharingknowledge in common. My research and creation takes the form of print, performance,installation and exhibition. By integrating documentation of workspace, performance,print and text, I invite the audience to enter an inclusive space and engage withimportant discursive material at the intersection of BioArt and BioPolitics."

OUTCOMES OF INQUIRY -Experimentation and Exhibition

My research, experimentation and exhibition/demonstration culminate in a single installation that occupies a white-cube model space. It features a sculptural vinyl fold on acrylic glass, the “floating” strips of microphotography and lastly the archived microbiological material of my body in glass jars. The processes of capturing, archiving and displaying the microbodies and their origins are at play with one another as the materials transform from biological, genetic and living to artificial, abstracted and representational. This shift is subtle, poetic and constantly occurring. It acts to reclaim the materiality of the “living” that colonize the body, especially after physical disruptions by other bodies, and thus reclaiming one’s subjectivity.

In its title, My Dirty Diary of RecombinantDispositions entertains the idea of a “dirty diary” one may keep of their bodilyrecombinant dispositions (recombinant meaning relating to or denoting anorganism, cell, or genetic material formed by recombination and disposition meaning aperson's inherent qualities of mind and).

This mouthful title is hardly playful in mymind. However, it is absolutely telling of the archival impulse I have attentively anddearly nourished during the research, experimentation and evidently exhibition ofthe work.