Plasticization Clinic II
Plasticization Clinic II is an interactive installation that speculates on the relationship between the caustic effects of microplastics and human evolution, personal data and institutional authority through sculpture, video, text-based work, and performance. This installation functioned as the second pop up biomedical clinic of fictive corporation GLEI Inc., supporting onsite research and public outreach in the hopes of engineering a more advanced, evolved, and in turn, plasticized, human genome. Within this installation, performers acting as lab technicians present factual and speculative information about the trajectory of human life with reference to the amount of plastic waste pollution in the water supply and to the toxicants that are often consumed as a result. Participants volunteered private information such as photographs, saliva samples, and medical histories to be tested for microplastics and archived for future research . The participants’ saliva was tested for BPAs and HDPEs, toxicants found in many single use plastics. Participation in the process encouraged community members to reflect on how signifiers of medical authority modified their behavior and trust in others, even when faced with improbable or irrational circumstances. They were also faced with the realities that microplastics exist within their bodies as a result of using different types of single use plastics.
Lauren Ruiz
Lauren Ruiz is a research-based multimedia artist interrogating ecological contamination, institutional authority, and bioethics through speculative fiction-based installations, interactive performance, and digital projects. Her work calls attention to the direct effects of individual choices on the environment and the future of human existence amidst anthropogenic climate change. Ruiz draws upon environmental data and science journals, climate fiction novels and horror films to complicate the complex mechanisms of evolution, ecology, data, and identity relative to institutional power and personal embodiment.