Some documents and text score from event at Articule (Feb.1)
February 8, 2009Performance objects:
Multiwell reaction plates with antigen
Elisa simulation kit
pipettes
Reusable plastic bottle containers
Reusable glass jars
Recycled garbage found in downtown Montreal
Large table
Performance score for imaginary antibodies:
1.Well A1: Add 10 drops of serum 1 +10 drops PBS buffer
2.Well B1: Add 5 drops of serum 1 + 15 drops PBS buffer
3. Well C1: Add 1 drop of serum 1 + 19 drops PBS buffer
4. Well A2: Add 10 drops of serum 2 + 10 drops PBS buffer
1. Well B2: Add 5 drops of serum 2 + 15 drops PBS buffer
2. Well C2: Add 1 drop of serum 2 + 19 drops of PBS Buffer
3. Well A3: Add 10 drops of serum 3 + 10 drops PBS buffer
4. Well B3: Add 5 drops serum 3 + 15 drops PBS buffer
5. Well C3: Add 1 drop of serum 3 + 19 drops PBS Buffer
6. Well A4: Add 20 drops PBS buffer
7. Well B4: Add 20 drops PBS buffer
8. Well C4: Add 20 drops PBS buffer
9. Well A5: Add 10 drops MRSA control + 10 drops PBS buffer
10. Well B5: Add 5 drops MRSA control + 15 drops PBS buffer
11. Well C5: Add 1 drop MRSA control +19 drops PBS buffer
12. Let stand 1 minute
13. Remove fluid from wells A1,B1 and C1.
14. Remove fluid from wells A2, B2 and C2.
15. Remove fluid from wells A3, B3, and C3
16. Remove fluid from wells A4, B4, and C4
17. Remove fluid from wells A5, B5, and C5
18. Add 10 drops of anti-human antibody to A1-A5, B1-B5, and C1-C5
19. Repeat steps 17-21.
20. Add 2 drops of colourmetric enzyme solution to A1-A5, B1-B5 and C1-C5
21. Look for change in colour.
22. Repeat 17-21.
23. Gather all materials not used with the liquid and place in biodegradable recycling bags until no object of the installation remains.
24. Walk out of gallery to recycling bins across street and dispose of materials.
Performance at Articule Feb 1st, 2009
January 25, 2009--
New performance
January 13, 2009The latest version of Performing Diagnostics is a one day performance installation that will take place on Sunday February 1st at Articule in Montreal. Press information with details for time and place will be release next week.
Performing Diagnostics:
Take a dash of donkey antibody. Mix with monkey secondary antibody. Add antigen taken from a genetically modified lab mouse. Stir gently with a plastic spoon found in the garbage dump. Take needle tips unearthed from landfill located near the incineration waste facility and carefully dissolve them in a beaker of bleach. Put both mixtures in a petri dish made from egg shells to see the enzyme reaction to determine a diagnosis. Is it positive or negative?
This performance installation re-imagines biotech protocols for diagnostic testing in relation to waste. Here, high-tech bio-surveillance lab equipment meets low-tech DIY recycling and craft; glossy sterile lab materials meet contaminated garbage. In Performing Diagnostics the art gallery is amplified as a vector for processing biological waste and pathogens created by its human-animal visitors.
Gallery visitors are invited to perform the protocols for ELISA (Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay) – a scientific protocol with medical applications to test for the presence of HIV and breast cancer – with garbage collected from recycling bins in Montreal. The re-use of garbage in biomedical and biotech practices proposes a DIY ethos, where anyone could potentially create an HIV testing kit from found objects, and complicates the segregation of purity from waste in the methodology of testing for ‘diseases’. Visitors are further invited to collectively perform the sterilization and waste disposal of all materials generated during the performance. Ultimately, the contamination of viral, bacterial, cellular, molecular, environmental bodies is contemplated as a potentially productive relation, albeit, entirely unscientific!
Upcoming
November 30, 2008A newer version of the performance first done at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (April 2008) will be shown at Subversiv Messe in Linz, Austria during Mid-May 2009. See below for details.
Counter Culture and Resistance Technology Fair
November 27, 2008Check out the website for Subversiv messe hosted by Social Impact in the blogroll. I have been invited to perform “performing Diagnostics” for this event held in Linz, Austria in May 2009.
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Copyright: Social Impact
COUNTER CULTURE AND RESISTANCE TECHNOLOGY FAIR
14 – 17 May 09
Idea / Concept / Realization: Social Impact
What inventions make resistance easier? Can we identify the seeds of revolutionary movements? What kinds of ideas have the potential to infiltrate the system? What can we do to undermine the powers that be?
Fashion and advertising, technology, hardware, software, the public domain and the order of things: what we see, what we use, how we act and how we behave, all this is subject to rules and regulations that are hardly ever questioned, rarely even noticed. How might intermeshing the industries of advertising, fashion and music with the sex appeal of active resistance work? How can the room for manoeuvre be altered, expanded, utilized? And will the world be any different afterwards? The SUBVERSIV MESSE alerts us to opportunities and points of view to help us understand mechanisms that have remained hitherto unnoticed and to conduct a critical debate about their consequences. The exhibition section will introduce ‘highlights of subversion’ and methods that demonstrate what individuals can do to put together an effective assault on ossified structures. Workshops, presentations, guided tours with an emphasis on the hands-on approach, product demonstrations and film screenings will provide background knowledge and an awareness of the possibility to strike back. We get a chance to sample new technologies, products and practices of cultural and political resistance and discuss them with artists and activists.
Art & Action Research
Since 1997 Social Impact has been active in a number of different artistic genres to expand the manoeuvring space for marginalized groups. Migration, surveillance and repression have been points of reference for regional interventions and exemplary models of socio-political development. Examples of actions taken so far: research on and publication of illegal routes into the EU for refugees; conception and distribution of a language guide for sex workers working the streets; fashion collection against police violence and racism; emergency accommodation for the homeless and for asylum seekers.
CREW //
Isa Herber (Management), Anna Kindler (Fund raising), Barbara Pitschmann (Head of project), Hannes Schoiswohl (Research), Harald Schmutzhard (Overall coordination)
A Linz09 project
Documents from the PICA event (April 2008)
November 8, 2008This earlier version of Performing Diagnostics took place at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art during the public exhibition of works created as part of “In situ/ In vitro?”. Public visitors were invited to perform a simulated HIV test using the ELISA method. The action of testing for one’s own HIV status (albeit a hypothetical one) in the context of the art gallery amplified a sense of play, curiosity, and some hesitation. The collision of the tools of artistic production and biomedical science created a tension for the participant who is not versed in process of diagnostic protocols– but rather, is usually the subject of them. The potential for erroneous diagnosis (errors of perceptions, procedure and protocols) became the focus of concern and discussion by many of the participants.