2012
Single channel Video Installation
9 min 30 sec, no sound
Edition 1/4 + 2 AP
About 60% of our body consists of bodily fluids, and their concentration is about the same as that of seawater. Tschäpe’s first name, Janaina, means “water god” to Brazilian people of African descent. Having been bestowed this name; Tschäpe regards water, the sea, and their flows and currents as important motifs. Her works obey the ceaseless flow of seawater and bodily fluids that constitute vital phenomena for the human body. At the same time, this tendency mingles with the desire to control and direct this flow.
In biology, the process of exchange between cells known as metabolism, as well as the heredity and reproduction of these same individual particles, are thought to be the origin of life. The smallest possible units that possess these qualities are cells, which are also the smallest possible units of life. The bouncing balloons seem to depict the movements of primordial, unicellular organisms like ocean plankton and amoebae, as well as the continuous motions of membrane-enclosed mitochondria and lysosomes that support life. Even as Tschape recounts to us the myths of the ocean, she also observes, like a scientist, how it harbors the origins of life.
Included with the work
Certificate of Authenticity, hard drive
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