Processing the Essence of Human Life
2011-12
Project / Installation (Water from Lourdes transformed into sweat and stored in souvenir glass bottles from Lourdes, accompanied with photographic documentation)
Virgin bottle – 17 x 5.5 x 5.5 cm, Glass bottles – 5.5 x 4 x 3 cm each, Photographs – 10 x 15 cm each
Processing the Essence of Human Life is made by transforming holy water from Lourdes into sweat while reading French philosophy. It was inspired by the recent discovery that thought alone influences the composition of human perspiration, which functions as an unconscious form of communication through pheromones. The seven glass bottles contain sweat produced while reading Pierre Bourdieu, Giles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Felix Guattari, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jacques Rancière. The virgin bottle contains a mixture of sweat produced while reading Deleuze on one occasion and Guattari on another. The series is accompanied with photographic documentation of the process.
