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Fiction is Within Us
Sculpture, Photography, Sound
2023
Sc Bronze
61 × 46 x 41 cm
Mumok, Wien
© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York Photo © mumok Museum,
Stiftung Ludwig
Wien
The Saccorhytus animal was once believed to be the oldest human ancestor, yet in recent years it has been scientifically disproven. Through researching this I began to wonder if the human species would every truly understand where it has come from, and it led me to question the foundation of scientific and historical narratives.
Fiction is Within Us explores both the precarity and possibility of these fields of study and how they engage with the living ecosystems they are based upon.
The forms were created by combining images of the Saccorhytus organism with human skulls through AI, merging archeology with a misconceived biological past. They were inverted with the images to form new visual depictions of our species, attempting a re-positioning of human evolution through fiction practice.
The skulls were 3D-printed using biodegradable filament, covered in clay, and temporarily installed on coral reefs in the Caribbean. This process was documented through underwater photography, returning the speculative skulls to the marine environment where early life evolved. Over time they became vessels for different kinds of life before washing back up on shore.
After being collected from the shore the skulls were made into fossils by imprinting them in mixtures of clay, earth, and sand from different time periods in geological history during major evolutionary periods. This method of preservation engages a more-than-human timescale, questioning what will remain when we are gone.
The fossils were exhibited with a sound piece combining underwater recordings with sonic frequencies made from height maps from the images. The different methods question the scientific origins and history of humanity, exploring their biological perception in the present, allowing for alternative narratives to unfold in the future.
To listen to the soundtrack play the audio file below.