K-9_topology
The need to reinvent ourselves with our nonhuman others is investigated in four parts of the K-9_topology project, which were carried out between 2014 and 2017. The wolf–human–dog parallel evolution research project, ECCE CANIS, focuses on the processes of metabolic pathways that trigger an emotional response that connects humans and dogs and allows them to successfully coexist. The serotonin hormone of Maja Smrekar and Byron, her dog companion, was transformed into an odor, symbolizing the mutual taming of the human and the canine species.
The project HYBRID FAMILY was related to the theory of becoming-animal by rethinking the social and ideological instrumentalization of a woman's body and breastfeeding. Overcoming the classical distinction between private life and political existence, Smrekar felt she needed to perform with her own body and the bodies of her dogs to re-gain their position of power by staging a public performance with a puppy. Her own economy of emotions became a molecular process: during a three-month period of seclusion with her dogs, she stimulated her pituitary glands with systematic breastpumping to release the hormone prolactin and followed a diet rich in galactogogues to promote lactation. A side effect was the increase in oxytocin hormone levels, which led to an increase in empathy and her personal resistance to the cynicism of the zeitgeist. By being pregnant with a meaning, and thus becoming (m)Other, Smrekar was further drawn to explore her "decolonial reproductive freedom in a dangerously troubled multispecies world." The myth of humanity, based on its uniqueness, has always excluded some that don't correspond to the ideal, for example animals with regard to parenthood and gender.
Addressing a new social ecology in the ARTE_mis project, Smrekar fused her molecular self with a dog - genetically the closest ancestor to the endangered wild wolf. In a biotechnological laboratory, the cell materials of the two carnivorous species were joined in an equal cohabitation relationship. Her denucleated reproductive cell, harvested in an egg retrieval procedure, was inserted with Ada’s somatic cell. Since the concept of IVF treatment paraphrases the institution of family as dispositive of all other forms of oppression, Smrekar juxtaposes ARTE_mis as a reference "to think beyond humanist limitations in order to embrace the risks that becoming-other-than human brings forth." The hybrid cell is a potential dystopic life scenario that might have more chances of survival on a planet in capitalist ruins.
TL;DR: Artist creates dog-human perfume with serotonin samples, breastfeeds her pets and then uses one of her own ova and some canine extract to create a dog-human cell that'll outlive us all when the bombs fall.
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