ipseria (cave of intelligent slime)

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installation

2-CHANNEL VIDEO INSTALLATION

latex, garden fleece, agar agar, glycerine, pigments, acrylic, ipseria scent, light, 2-channel video, sound, dimensions variable

exhibition view at Werkschau Kanton Zürich, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, CH

After being left behind inside your own intestines in the virtual reality of ipseria's session I, in session II, the spectator is being picked up exactly there.

Mucosa- and tendon-like screens and columns made from latex, agar, glycerine, and garden fleece invite you to get absorbed in the lulling audiovisual landscape. Like a warm echo reverberating from a fleshy wall or a slimy membrane, the polyphonic voice of a disembodied entity – oddly non-human and human at the same time – guides you through a two-channel animation video based on 3D scans of physically modeled and found objects as well as collected materials. The ambiguous atmosphere is enhanced by an ambivalent smell of sweet-sour breast milk and human and non-human mucus.

detail 1

detail 2

While the mixed-reality installation in part I explored the fictional entity ipseria's gender and (non-)procreation, part II delves into ipseria's multifaceted nature as a multispecies slime and the intelligence of mucus. Organisms like humans and the Earth are holobionts permeated by slime. These biofilms represent the biggest and oldest biocoenosis on the planet. Like these communities of microorganisms, ipseria is individual and group simultaneously – a single organism and a whole body of slime, a mono- and a multi-entity. ipseria appears/appear at interfaces and boundary areas of the spheres, on mucous membranes, bridging the living and the Umwelt (environment), the inside and the outside. They know how much an organism can take, and they keep the delicate balance of a system. They mediate, communicate, indicate, and remember. Thinking runs through slime. Knowing is fairly distributed.

2023

Photos: John Patrick Walder

Special Thanks: Jordis Fellfrau, Andreas Wilhelm, Jope Schneider, Kasimir Wydler.