Patricia Piccinini literally demonstrated the long-term affects of xenotransplantion and species alteration in The Young Family (2002). Piccinini’s family cautions against the intrusion of biomedicine into reproduction, and the risks to women who have chosen to avail themselves of new reproductive technologies. Piccinini’s porcine-human chimera evokes Ripley’s clone in Alien Resurrection in that it is more-than-human and less-than-human and as such, it not only effaces the borders between the human, the animal and technology, but also challenges our notions of what it is to be human. Like Alien Resurrection, Piccinini’s The Young Family situates the source of monstrosity in the body of the reproductive female, for as bearer of future generations she carries the burden of recessive genes, which could reproduce mutations. The technology that informs Piccinini’s work and underscores the anxiety expressed in Alien Resurrection may be the cloning of genetically modified pigs whose organs have been designed as ‘human user friendly’ by carrying a gene that inhibits the rejection of the organ by human subjects after it is transplanted.
The work insinuates that animal DNA will integrate with the gene pool of the human species and permanently alter its morphology. The sculpture made from silicone, polyurethane, leather and human hair represents a chimera with human hands, feet and limbs, long porcine ears and facial features, skin with wrinkles, blotches and moles and a torso with multiple nipples, at which three of its offspring suckle. The fourth member of the litter lies on its back and plays with its foot. Positioned, as such it exposes obvious mons pubis or external human female genitalia, doubly alerting us to the significant role of the female in the reproduction of a new species.
The work insinuates that animal DNA will integrate with the gene pool of the human species and permanently alter its morphology. The sculpture made from silicone, polyurethane, leather and human hair represents a chimera with human hands, feet and limbs, long porcine ears and facial features, skin with wrinkles, blotches and moles and a torso with multiple nipples, at which three of its offspring suckle. The fourth member of the litter lies on its back and plays with its foot. Positioned, as such it exposes obvious mons pubis or external human female genitalia, doubly alerting us to the significant role of the female in the reproduction of a new species.
Piccinini challenges the hierarchical place of humanity in the human animal divide by creating a tableau and morphological thought experiment in which both human and animal coalesce. By doing so she raises important questions about what is considered to be human. Transgenic technologies and their potential for creating malformed entities as well as the potential of stem cell technology are combined together in Piccinini’s Still Life with Stem Cells, which depicts a young girl sitting on the floor surrounded by amorphous shapes that suggest fragmented and incomplete human limbs or tissue. Their state implies interruption or disturbance to normal human growth producing mutant forms. Indeed, constructed from the stem cells of a body, these organs without bodies may be read as spare parts waiting to be connected to the body, however, in their current form they are virtual entities containing the potential to be part of, rather than disconnected from the body. These forms, which engage with monstrous entities produced through experimental cloning techniques, more directly depict the possible outcomes of differentiated and undifferentiated stem cells. Piccinini’s Nest (2006), should be considered alongside the work of Korean artist Lee Bul, particularly her Live Forever III (2000) and Cyborg Red and Blue (2002), works which suggests the malleability of the human body and its possibility for redesign through genetic engineering and cloning; both artists draws our attention to the possibilities of an artificially produced evolution of the human species. Julie Clarke© 2009
thanks :)
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