GMU:Synthetic Biology/PERFECT BODY

PERFECT BODY (living sex machine), Mila Burghardt 2010

Latex cast prototypes

Exhibition at „(re)Performing the Posthuman“

Latex casts, conceived as prototypes for future body part commodities, produced with industrially grown human tissue. And a commecial, typical for drugstore TV.

The body as piece of clothing. Naturally to choose from a collection of noses, breasts and ears every morning. Buyable in every drugstore the bodily parts are properties of our every day life. With the help of the ACTIVE BACTERIA LOTION the body gets disintegrated in the upper structure, new body parts of the collection may be attached and adhere in a minute.

The obsession of beauty - the perfect body is reachable for everyone – alterable comparing to fashion and feeling, but payed with the loss of the own body. Fleshly schizophrenia. And a new playground for biohacking. With real feelings guaruanteed.

'PERFECT BODY (living sex machine)' goes just one or two steps further than our every day life and the social tendencies, concerning to obsession of beauty, availability of body (and woman) and asks: Where is the boarder between subject and object?

It seems to be a very realistic vision if we think what might be possible with the help of synthetic biology.

And if this will be part of our life – how will it change subjectivity, the meaning of individualism – what will it change in society? With a reference to a paper by Lesley A. Sharp „Body Transfer“ published in „Performance Research – Transplantations“ (2009) there might be significant changes: „The visualisation of embodied change inevitable alters our understanding of the body's surfaces; these changes also reconfigure the social value and subjecticity of patients through the visual representation of body reconstruction.“ Referring to Rita Robertos Paper „self awareness and the vehicle air“ we also have to ask the question of isolation of mind and body if we deal with visions as 'PERFECT BODY (living sex machine)'. She writes: „Mind and body are empty of meaning if isolated from each other. This suggests that they cannot be held as opposites and that their relation is not a dual one, since they cannot be isolated as completely seperate parts.“ Are body and mind still connected if we may change our outward appearance completely? How do they then still affect on each other?

The PERFECT BODY (living sex machine) was already exhibited in Brighton at the conference „(re)Performing the Posthuman“. Up to this point many researchers stuck to „posthuman“ with the idea of technical prosthesis (as in stelarcs prothetic hand, for example) so we had great discussions of the meanings of 'real living posthuman prosthesis' as visualized in 'PERFECT BODY (living sex machine)'.