Sabine Kacunko used the sounds generated by the particle movements in her blood, as seen in Looping Life / Hit and Run (2013) as the basis for the performance piece Looping Life: Corpuscles, to take place at the conference organized by Medical Museion Copenhagen. Audio data, generated in collaboration with Dr. Paul Modler (Karlsruhe) served (as already in Paris in 2011) as the basis for the current performance piece (a corpuscle is a tiny, free floating biological cell, especially a blood cell). The piece might best be defined as a mobile sound scultpure: a 3D model of the artist’s haemogram, or blood test, fitted with a speaker and a thermometer and resembling an acupuncture ball in design, emits atmospheric sound elements. The audio data was generated with the help of specially developed software that transforms into sound the reactions of “endosymbionts” (cf. Hit and Run, 2013) to elements introduced to the cell environment by the artist. Dancers tossed the “ball” to one another and members of the audience, or move the object through bodily contact with (volunteer) participants.
Comment
The performance followed this concept and backgrounds: Blood is the origin of life, a life force. Yet, environmental toxins create pathogens, such as bacteria, that enter the blood and make us sick, endangering human and animal biodiversity. The course of development taken by these microorganisms in the blood depends on its specific milieu, which is determined by its variety and pH values. Substances foreign to the body can be measured in blood levels (blood plasma) and, thus, reflect the exterior milieu. The performance Looping Life: Corpuscles made this process visually, audibly and kinaesthetically perceptible. Looping Life: Corpuscles opened up another field of interdisciplinary research to the artist’s investigations, focusing on the work of pathbreaking physician Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865): Semmelweis not only discovered early on that bacteria were the cause of disease but that their spread could be prevented through simple hygienic measures. His findings saved and continue to save lives to this day. Yet, despite his success, the work of Semmelweis went long unrecognized. His own students had little regard for the necessity of hygiene, and many physicians simply did not want to accept the idea that they themselves were responsible for the infection and spread of diseases they were attempting to heal. Some, like the German physician and obstetrician Gustav Adolf Michaelis (1798-1848), were so troubled by this discovery as to take their own lives. Michaelis was the first to confirm Semmelweis’ findings and defended the latter’s work against all opposition right up to his suicide. Not until his students submitted a request to the Danish king was Michaelis named director of the birth house and head instructor of the midwife school on 28 August 1841. He did not, however, afford the title and remuneration of a professorship.
Context
Occasion: International conference Bacteria, Art and other Incommodities. Bacteria in Arts, Sciences and Humanities (15th May 2015), held in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Dänemark, IKK (University of Copenhagen) and MICRO HUMAN, Berlin, in Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen.
For the motive of the reproduced poster, the artist took her recent composite photography From Dusk til Dust (2014). In their joint lecture, Slavko and Sabine Kacunko presented the paper Big Bacteria for Micro Humans: Bacteria as Archeological-Ecological Nexus for an Integrative Health & Heritage Research, in which the potential material and conceptual bridges for the development of integrated health and heritage research were discussed. On the basis of a ‘model case study in progress,’ – the Colossseum project –, the potential of emerging research networks to integrate interdisciplinary perspectives between art-based research and research-based art was discussed as well.
