I Eat You  

  11/01/11       MFA Design & Technology

DESMA 9- Art Science and Technology- Prof. Victoria Vesna

PSAM.5570.B Hilal Koyuncu

 Aisen Caro Chacin

Abstract

Is a biological, philosophical, and performative ritual that studies the multiplicity of tissue engineering from a vulnerable and controversial perspective. I Eat You means I Love You, it means unification. Absorbing nutrients and live energy from another to feed and give life to another. Eating is a sacrificial cycle, incorporation. It takes away and gives back, it is the transcendence of existence. I want to eat my lover and he wants to eat me. Together we want to harvest a small part of bodies to grow outside of ourselves through tissue engineering.

I Eat You questions the social perception cliffs on cannibalism. It philosophically challenges its meaning by raising another question: the ethical classification and utility  synthetically grown life with the use of biotechnology.

To eat you, making you part of me. To know you in my gut, digest you.

Concept

I Eat You was initially conceived as an attempt to grow a synthetic live salmon steak. Ideally challenging the current food production methods and investigating new possibilities of tissue engineering for this specific use. Though this concept was sufficiently intriguing, it continued to raise philosophical questions in my mind. What is synthetic life? Are growing cells in a petri dish alive?  Yes, but do ethical vegetarian who only eat living things without a central nerve system eat synthetically grown meat if there is no suffering at harvesting? Could this change our perspective on eating human meat? How does one body deal with eating a piece of itself? Which led me to changing my salmon stake to a stake of my own meat, or better my lover's.  To eat another is to absorb their power and their being.  Is this still true when the meat has been grown dismembered  from the body?

• The first step is to find a BioHacker space that approves of my project, so I can have access to the tools necessary for tissue engineering.

• To begin the experiments on I Eat You, I will begin by learning the proper procedures for tissue engineering with my own cheek cells. 

• Many attempts need to happen before we move on to the next step. Practice and perfect are both integral parts of this work.

Project Proposal- Equipment

Project Proposal- Muscle Harvesting

• After having a good grasp and understanding of skin cells and how they are grown and cared for outside the body, the next step is to layer 2 different types of cells.

• To harvest muscle cells will be a great challenge, since they are so deep in the body. A doctor may be required, but that will be the hardest part, to find a doctor that will give you a biopsy for such a purpose. 

• Another option is a body modification artist, or if all else fails, ourselves.

Project Proposal- Ritual

• The ritual of I Eat You will be a personal documented performance, where we can experience this vulnerable moment without the shock value or presence of the audience.

• Its manifestation is not to have the reaction of the bodily abject, but rather a special bond between two bodies/ an outer body experience

Context and PrecedenceAnthony Atala's 3D printed scaffolding for a kidney sparked an inquietude in me to learn more about tissue engineering. Biotechnology has always been fascinating, but not until I met Romie Littrell from LA BioHackers, who introduced me to BioHacker spaces, did I find it possible. Procedurally this project will have to be created in an autonomous space due to it's controversial philosophical implications. Inspiration and hope of feasibility also comes from artist such as Lepht Anonym who is a biohacker. She is also considered a "grinder" because she operates on herself to add magnetic, temperature, etc. sensors to her body as extensions of her nervous system. James King's "Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow" is also thinking about synthetically grown meat with a futuristic approach, by skipping all of the technicalities and jumping directly with aesthetics. Another great inspiration and comfort is the Brazilian art movement, Neoconcrete, and the Cannibal Manifesto written by Oswald Andrade in 1928. It depicts cannibalism similarly to the Eucharist in Christianity, as a positive power sharing sacrificial symbol of love. Recent work that resembles I Eat You are Biojewellery by Kerridge, Stott, and Thompson. Collecting sample bone cells participants can make bone tissue engineered  commitment rings.

ConclusionIs it cannibalistic to eat oneself? Would the taste of synthetically grown human meat taste the same as it does fresh? If there was anybody I would eat, it would be my lover. Are we already cannibals (breast milk, placenta-eating cultures, kissing)? Do you have to kill to be a cannibal? If meat is grown outside of the body is it still cannibalistic? Would people be more comfortable eating themselves or other people? Are people only willing to eat human flesh in extreme survival circumstances?

I Eat You is all of these questions raised. This experiment that attempts to answer them , at least for ourselves. What will be the thought going through our heads as we bite into each others flesh.

References

David Cohen (24 October 2011)  Grow your own meat. BBC News Technology. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15402552  Tobie Kerridge, Nikki Stott, Ian Thompson (2003-7). “Biojewellery”. Senses from a Nanotech World. Design and The Elastic Mind. MoMA. http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/25/

 James King (2008). “Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow”. http://www.james-king.net/projects/meat

 SanDiegoTeam (Mar 2009) “How much edible meat on a human body?” The Straight Dope http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=549847

 Simone Osthoff (1997) Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica: A Legacy of Interactivity and Participation for a Telematic Future. Leonardo Volume 30, No. 4. A Radical Intervention: The Brazilian Contribution to the International Electronic Art Movement http://www.leonardo.info/isast/spec.projects/osthoff/osthoff.html

 John Borland (December 30, 2010) Transcending the Human, DIY Style. Wired. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/transcending-the-human-diy-style/

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