+ semi living

BIOTEKNICA
Vessel Study I - VI

The Biopolitics of Transubstantiation and 'Sacred' Bodies

BIOTEKNICA interrogates the profound entanglement between the sacrificial body, unruly organic matter, and the architecture of containment.

In the medieval epoch, the cereal grain that sustained human life through the Eucharistic host could simultaneously operate as a powerful neurotoxic agent. Ergot (Claviceps purpurea), parasitizing rye crops, produced alkaloid-driven pathologies—convulsions, visual hallucinations, and ischemic necrosis—historically designated as Ignis Sacer (St. Anthony's Fire). The complex chemistry of these ergot alkaloids, acting as historical precursors to modern lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), collapses the distance between chemical intoxication and revelatory sacrament. Afflicted pilgrims sought sanctuary within the Antonine hospitals, establishing a therapeutic paradigm where etiology was subordinate to divine intervention. Structurally and functionally, the medieval reliquary, the shroud, and the Antonine infirmary operated as primitive bioreactors: closed systems engineered to negotiate an inscrutable biological crisis that manifested simultaneously as divine retribution, mystical ecstasy, and pathophysiology.

Vessel Study I - VI transposes this historical dialectic into a contemporary medium. The suspended, branching biofractal submerged within a chromatic fluid functions not as a passive artifact, but as a living topology of growth—simultaneously luminous and cytotoxic. Its opalescent matrix evokes both nutrient serums, harvested fetal serums, and the filtered light of stained glass, while the jagged geometry of the installation echoes the crown of thorns: functioning dually as a brutal instrument of sovereign torture and as a revered, sacred natural object embedded with organic residue. Like the sclerotium of Claviceps purpurea and the spectral imprint of the Shroud of Turin, it resists ontological categorization: is it autonomous life, holy relic, or pathogenic contamination?

The installation engages directly with the theological and material stakes of modern devotional art—from Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ to contemporary bodily praxis like Marc Quinn's "Blood Head" (Self)—which leverages bodily fluids and the complex bioethics of nutrient and fetal serums to interrogate the porous boundary between the sacred and the profane. Rather than staging a direct iconographic provocation, BIOTEKNICA reactivates the foundational diagnostic dilemma of the Antonine monks: when neurochemistry and organic pathology simulate divine revelation, by what criteria does the church or the laboratory distinguish the miraculous from the toxic?

How might this integration of Eucharistic theology, syndetic relics, and mycotoxicology be extended to address contemporary synthetic biology and the engineering of artificial life?

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