Electroplating the Baby
Electroplating the Baby is a project initiated and inspired by a poem from Jo Schapcott in which she describes an invention by a Parisian scientist dr. Variot of galvanizing the body of the dead, it was astonishing for me and intriguing to try to invert this idea, and to propose even more radical step and that is to galvanize the unborn baby, the fetus, as a perfect monument described in the poem and patent of the scientist. This project is interconnected with the omnipresent flows in the landscape of necropolitics and bio-politics in general. In the context of love, and its abstraction, this work provokes the parental and traditional topoi of a family unifying goal through the means of reproduction which as a culmination of its love has a new born being, a baby, new human. But also not just parental and socially established norm of ‘love’, love in this case could be the very obsession to produce and realize, materialize or metalize this almost un-possible idea into a concrete work. It is very strange to think about this work as related to Pop-art culture and its means of production. It concerns the twofold absorption of knowledge, within the limits of the circumstances in which it is put to work. That any sort of this articulation will be emptied and closed… so this repetition field opens, for us to realize that in this game there is no end… This is known to those who threw the dice. A new type of religion should really be entrepreneurial and active. I want to, and this immobilized child of utopia... In case of the real thing, the artifact performed carefully, and in a hypothetical space of future, the main Eckhartian question arises, does love really makes us into the thing we love? In order for metal layer to be successfully applied, it is necessary to solve dilemma with the preparation of the fetus, since it is rather soaked. This can be solved either through a specific chemical process that would make the water gelatinous or dehydrated. There is another possibility, a kind of pre-mummification. The most efficient would be to use an electrochemical process: because it includes an electro circuit which, by its streaming in galvanized bath, achieves the subsidence of silver completely hermetically. Electroplating the Baby je projekat pokrenut i inspirisan pesmom Jo Schapcott u kojoj se opisuje izum pariškog naučnika dr. Variota, galvaniziranja tela mrtvih. Za mene je bilo začudno i intrigantno pokušati da preokrenem ovu ideju i predložim još radikalniji korak, a to je da se potakne nerođeno dete, fetus, kao savršen spomenik opisan u pesmi i patentu naučnika. Ovaj projekat je povezan sa sveprisutnim tokovima u krajoliku nekropolitike i biopolitike. U kontekstu ljubavi i njene apstrakcije, ovaj rad provocira i roditeljski, tradicionalni topos porodičnog ujedinitelja, cilja koji putem sredstava reprodukcije koji kao vrhunac svoje ljubavi ima novo rođeno biće, bebu. Ali takođe ne samo roditeljska i društveno uspostavljena norma ljubavi, ljubav u ovom slučaju može biti i sama opsesija da se proizvede i realizuje, materijalizuje ili metalizira ova gotovo ne-moguća ideja u konkretan posao. Čudno je razmišljati o ovom radu u pravcu odnosa sa Pop-art kulturom i njenim sredstvima za proizvodnju. To se odnosi na dvostruku apsorpciju znanja, u granicama okolnosti u kojima se ona sprovodi. Da će bilo koja vrsta ove artikulacije biti ispražnjena i zatvorena ... tako da se ovo polje ponavljanja otvari, da bismo shvatili da u ovoj igri nema kraja ... To je poznato onima koji su bacali kockice. Novi tip religije bi zaista trebao biti preduzimljiv i aktivan. Želim da, i ovo imobilizovano dete utopije ... U slučaju realne stvari, artefakta koji se izvodi pažljivo, i u hipotetičnom prostoru budućnosti, postavlja se glavno Ekhartovsko pitanje, da li nas ljubav zaista pretvara u stvar koju volimo? Da bi se sloj metala uspešno naneo potrebno bi bilo rešiti nedoumicu sa pripremom samog fetusa buduci da je, prilicno natopljeno (tj. vlažno). To se može rešiti ili putem odredenog hemijskog postupka koji bi vodu ucinio gelastom, ili dehidriranjem. Tako bi se masa i oblik fetusa prilicno izmenili. Postoji i druga mogucnost, a to je vrsta premumifikacije, koja podrazumeva plastificiranje ili obrazovanjem opne korišcenjem silikona. Najefikasnije bi bilo koristiti elektrohemijski postupak, pre nego hemijski: jer on ukljucuje strujno kolo koje svojim kretanjem u galvanokupkici ostvaruje samo taloženje srebra potpuno hermeticno.