(In)Corruptible

2024

(In)Corruptible is a sculptural bio-artwork composed of an effusively moldering ‘relic’ within techno-industrial ‘reliquary.’ The face within the reliquary is an agar cast of the original CPR manikin, Resusci-Anne. Within the confines of a steel reliquary, her face quickly proliferates with bacteria and fungi - subverting her usual plastic permanence and her role as a symbol and pedagogical tool of life extension. Although the moral imperative to preserve life seems self-evident, the technologies underlying it are rarely able to aid survival, as evidenced by CPR’s lack of efficacy (Yan et al. 2020; Garcia et al. 2022; Stapleton et al. 2014). These technoscientific solutions ncourage our faith in them by promising to save life, just as the incorruptible relics of Catholic saints did and do (by presenting preservation as a sign of ultimate morality, something that indicates a life everlasting). “Ridding ourselves of the demands of the earth seem[s] to promise a world of prosperity through scientific control,” (Davis 2014, 364) but the insistence on lifesaving skirts past “the horrifying implications of the inability to decompose” (353). 

This piece was first presented at the FEMeeting Conference exhibition ‘Elegy for a Cell’ in Windsor, Canada (2024).

14 x 14 x 22”

galvanized steel, acrylic, gold leaf, fluorescent lights, wiring, agar, mold, fungi

The inscriptions around the base of the ‘reliquary’ include the Latin inscription “Incorruptibilis Resusci-Anne: In Aeternum Salvus Erit, In Aeternum Salutaris” (The Incorruptible Resusci-Anne: Forever Saved, Forever Saving), as well as quotes from CPR’s “founding” researchers, Laerdal (the company that manufactures Resusci-Anne manikins), and a portion of the Bible that has been repeatedly cited in medical literature on resuscitation.

CPR founders: “Since his origin Man has been his brother’s keeper. There thus gradually evolved, in modern civilization, the specialized role of the physician or healer who first healed by superstition, then by faith, and finally by science.” - 1964

Laerdal: “Because she has no name and remains and enigma, we can never reach her or taint her… we project our own dreams onto her.” - company literature

The Bible: (32) “And when Elisha was come into the house, behold the child was dead and laid upon the bed. (33) He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord. (34) And he went up, and laid upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth… and the flesh of the child waxed warm. (35) …and the child opened his eyes. - 2 Kings 4.32-6