Paper short abstract:

The proposed presentation will demonstrate a sound artwork We began as part of the body, developed by the author during a period of creative research residency, at the laboratory of Professor Sara Brown, an eczema genetic research facility, within the School of Medicine, University of Dundee.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed presentation will demonstrate a sound artwork We began as part of the body, developed by the author during a period of creative research residency, at the laboratory of Professor Sara Brown, an eczema genetic research facility, within the School of Medicine, University of Dundee, Scotland, organised by ASCUS Art & Science.

The artwork is a spoken word sound piece, leading the audience through the story of the lab's artificial skin cell culture's journey from operating theatre to research lab, and finally to disposal. The dialogue is based on scientifically detailed information, made curious, enlightening and poignant, because here the point of view is the personal perspective of the artificial skin cell cultures, recounting the journey of their short, precious, three weeks long 'in-vitro' life.

We began as part of the body is an artwork that reflects complex human and ethical questions about the relationship between the body, science and technology, in a rigorously informed, but deeply poetic way. It places the artist as correspondent within a cutting edge, real-world scientific environment, able to apply methods deemed "positively squishy" (Ingold 2016), too soft for typical scientific enquiry in order to question and provocate (as opposed to illustrate or be instrumental).

In this presentation the author considers the affective potential and implications of using the ex-vivo 'life' of the organotypic artificial skin cells, as the anthropological (creative) subject, through an eclectic and broad lens including design anthropology, phenomenology, new materialism and psychology.