Queer Cornut(/c)opia - A Biotic-Tech Art Residency

In the NO!!!BOT, I am exploring biotic-tech practices* as the flip side of the Necro-Techno complex. When the opportunity arose to perform at Grace Performance Space in Brooklyn, I invited bioartist and performer Adam Zaretsky to do a residency and the performance with me. 

The residency was held simultaneously at Grace's Rosekill farm near Kingston, New York and a separate location near Woodstock. I wanted to work with Zaretsky to look at the most successful Exoskeletons that have been on Earth for 430 million years – cannibalistic Scorpions. From the guardians Scorpion-Man and Scorpion-Woman in the Epic of Gilgamesh, to Christian conceptions of scorpions as so evil they cannot be part of God’s creation, to Asian concepts of scorpion as coitus – scorpions simultaneously embody pain, lust, poison, evil and protection from evil. As cannibals, how are scorpions the source of military Exoskeleton technologies? Who are militaries and technology companies cannibalizing? I also wanted to work with Zaretsky on queer desire and biotic-tech. Over the two weeks we explored methodologies of staying with this trouble through biotic expressions and emerged with QueerCornut(/c)opia:

We did photo shoots, invented tools, made scorpion parts, planted seeds, reworked media elements, collected salmon sperm DNA, shared generously, dialogued extensively, bent time, told corny jokes, cross contaminated our microbiomes, and made tamales. At times we were joined by media artist Kira deCoudres, at others by experimental psychologist Issy, and at others looked at experimental transmedia artists Lissette Olivares and Cheto Castellano of sin kabeza productions. 

Excerpts from photo shoots at Rosekill:

*biotic-tech is a field of inquiry being elaborated through the distributed intelligence of larval rock stars, across our practices. more on adam zaretsky, more on kira decoudres, more on sin kabeza.