By S.H. | NEW YORK
THE VIALS are small and twisted, resembling worms or caterpillars; inside them, a liquid glows pink. It is a “lentivirus vector, hybridised with vesicular stomatitis and a plasmid containing genes for red fluorescent protein and oxytocin expression”—in other words, a love potion. In theory, if you were to smash open a vial and drink it, you would be infected with a virus that would boost your body’s production of oxytocin, a hormone which, among other things, plays a role in sexual arousal, recognition, trust and bonding. But as the elixir is not safe for human consumption it remains behind glass in a cool, dark room in the Fridman Gallery in downtown New York, where it is part of a show called “At the Temperature of My Body”.
The piece, “Lovesick”, is one of Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s recent experiments in merging science and art. It was made in collaboration with researchers at Integral Molecular, a biotechnology company which specialises in antibody discovery. After the divisiveness of the Brexit vote and the American presidential election Ms Dewey-Hagborg began to think about possible antidotes to the “alienation and hate of the present”; “the work is envisioned as an activist intervention,” she writes on her website. Next to the vials are photographic prints of the virus at work on kidney cells and T cells as well as a video installation. Soft singing fills the gallery: it is the sound of Ms Dewey-Hagborg and her partner singing “CYIQNCPL”, letters which denote oxytocin’s proteins.
