These didactic collages/posters are isolated excerpts from the Warm Bodies, Ghostly Specimens, Stoic Machines digital e-book and printed textbook. To view the full e-book please click on this link: https://indd.adobe.com/view/fa234364-49af-46ca-b61c-2660f55a004e

Art, Science and Spirituality inform my systematically installed networks of cultural specimens. Accompanying didactic classification records dissection, modification and preservation of hauntological memorabilia within my familial home. Investigative phases recollect my fragmented Japanese heritage; personifying selfhood within a discourse amongst deceased ancestors. Warm Bodies, Ghostly Specimens, Stoic Machines materializes symbiosis by hybridizing tangible genealogy and intangible vitality.

Warm Bodies, Ghostly Specimens, Stoic Machines | Textbook Pages

Statement:

My work is influenced by the exploratory coalescence of Art, Science and Spirituality. Studio production abstracts scientific and diagnostic strategies when conducting introspective experimentation, centralized around my deceased grandmother’s ancestral home. This space; where I live/work activates cultural analysis in relation to the ‘specimen’. Housing objects of investigation metaphysically linked to my Japanese heritage. Enigmas encountered during domestic excavations of displaced memorabilia, initiate intrigue towards former dwelling ghostly-bodies and their residual earthly possessions. Cultural objects are converted into cultural-specimens via tactile methods of dissection, modification, reanimation and preservation. Each chronological phase assimilates fragmented lineage, pertaining to the-self/examiner. Genealogical gaps unveiled among sequestered archives, constitutes a focus on tangibility, transience and liminal mortality.

Systematic installation subsequently reinstates specimen-hybrids within a network of refurbished Japanese display cases/cabinets. Transformed into incubation machines, to revive the objects originally stored within them. Each specimen/container is then taxonomically collected and labelled, corresponding to a counterpart analogue textbook. Operating as a laboratory record by transcribing evolutionary-variants and observational-data. Its didactic formatting re-establishes works through biostatistical documentation, illustrating investigative intent for each preserved subject. Museology informs the cultural extraction and rehabilitation of relics, utilizing assemblage to cease erasure and reclaim displaced artifacts. This circulatory exhibition transmutes life and death; conjuring ethereal perceptivity to restore ethnological DNA. Implications of relinquished language oppose western classification and constructs a historical discourse within my present-day work. The rectification of silenced-bodies relies on each works’ bio-memetic materiality; to unify the premise of restoration across multi-dimensional platforms. Synthetic, found, organic and spectral objects evoke vital symbolism within my habitual practice. I navigate transgenerational epigenetics and hauntological ontology by anthropomorphizing the realm of loss.

Materials: 
Silicone, Tubes, Wire, String, Inherited cultural objects (altered), Archival photos/Scripture, Medical/Government docs, Latex, Plastic, Metal, Mylar, Wood, Specimen Jars/Glassware, Curtains, Traditional Japanese display cases (altered), Plaster, Acrylic/Oil paint &medium, Tags/text, Encaustic wax, Medical objects, Dissection equipment, Resin, Hardware/tools, Bones/Skulls, Insects, Nylon, Stuffing, Metal grates, Petri dishes, Agar, Gelatin, Borax crystals, Traditional dishware, Preservative liquid, Fabric, The departed’s clothing, Cabinets (filing/china), Hair/Skin/Nails, Fabrics, Rice, Fungi, Rice paper, Canvas, Didactic labels, Sewing thread, Wall phones, Clay, Relics/Heirlooms (altered) etc.
Dimensions: 108” x 80” x 90”

Warm Bodies, Ghostly Specimens, Stoic Machines | Installation

This video performance depicts a flip-through preview of the Warm Bodies, Ghostly Specimens, Stoic Machines, printed hardcopy textbook. Please change the video quality settings to 1080p60(HD) for the best viewing experience. To view the full e-book, please see this link: https://indd.adobe.com/view/fa234364-49af-46ca-b61c-2660f55a004e

This assembled narrative was intended to analytically contextualize the contributing subject matter to each installation/experiment. A textbook; taxonomically operating as a laboratory record, transcribing evolutionary-variants and observational-data. Its didactic formatting re-establishes works through biostatistical documentation. Illustrating the investigative intent for each preserved cultural-specimen and subsequent visual manifestation. I’ve fabricated this personalized handbook by employing archival processes developed to create scientific manuals. Aspects of organic classification are researched and compositionally embedded, influenced by anatomical illustrations, medical diagrams and encyclopedia charts. Museological assemblage integrates and contrasts my present-day work. The implication of lost culture and forgotten language, situated within western-classification creates a historical discourse. Corresponding textual legends and numeric figures methodically map the accumulated information. Systematizing this intimate collection has become an informative process; depicting affiliations between, conditioned cybernetic-organisms and their tangible ontology. This resulting configuration functions as a guidebook throughout the varying reproductions of hauntological hybrids.

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Marli Davis