Trust Me, I'm an Artist
From Waag
The performance Que le cheval vive en moi (May the horse
live in me) is an extreme, medical self-experiment with a
blood-brotherhood beyond species boundaries. With this performance, the
French duo Art Orienté objet calls for greater ecological
responsibility from humans, whose technologies increasingly
instrumentalize other animals and plants. The artist Marion
Laval-Jeantet has turned herself into a proverbial “guinea pig,”
allowing herself to be injected over the course of several months with
horse immunoglobulins (glycoproteins that function as antibodies in
immune response) and thus developing a progressive tolerance to these
foreign animal bodies.
In February 2011, having built up her tolerance, she was able to be
injected with horse blood plasma containing the entire spectrum of
foreign immunoglobulins, without falling into anaphylactic shock—the
intention being that the horse immunoglobulin would by-pass the
defensive mechanisms of her own human immune system, enter her blood
stream to bond with the proteins of her own body and, as a result of
this synthesis, have an effect on all major body functions.
Immunoglobulins are biochemical messengers that control, for example,
the glands and organs of the endocrine system, which is also closely
tied to the nervous system, so that the artist, during and in the weeks
after the performance, experienced not only alterations in her
physiological rhythm but also of her consciousness, characterized by
heightened sensibility and nervousness....MORE
And from designboom:
art orienté objet: may the horse live in me
que le cheval vive en moi’ (may the horse live in me) by art orienté objet
(marion laval-jeantet & benoît mangin) is a medical
self-experiment / performance where the artist marion laval-jeantet
allowed herself to be injected with horse blood plasma containing the
entire spectrum of foreign immunoglobulins (following several months of
precautions to build up her immune system). after the transfusion, the
artist performed a communication ritual with a horse while wearing
prosthetic horse-like stilts before her hybrid blood was extracted and
freeze-dried....MORE
