Self-repair (work in progress)
Laboratory. 2017-2018
n number of participants

Concept Contributions Contact


Concept

“Self-repair Lab" is an artistic installation and a collaborative 
framework for biological, chemical and geological experimentation. The 
installation resembles a DIY biological experiment laboratory, where 
artworks, lab equipment, people and events are brought together in order 
to understand and to reflect self-organization of the ecosystem, 
human-machine interaction, and up to date discourses brought by artists, 
scientists and engineers.

Self-repair theme refers to the organism’s ability to identify and to 
fix own system. If organism’s DNA gets damaged, it attempts to fix 
itself. From an evolutionary perspective, Lynn Margulis introduced a 
theory of symbiotic organisms wherein, through interaction and 
collaboration, prokaryotic organisms evolved into more complex 
eukaryotic cells (Sagan, 1966). On a social level self-repair could 
refer to organisms’ ability to adapt to the changing environment. There 
are also extreme self-repair cases, which might be interesting to 
consider. For example one of the better known self-surgeries under 
"real-life conditions" was performed by Leonid Rogozov during his 
expedition to the Antarctic, when he removed his own appendix.

“Self-repair Lab” reflects the theme through cultural perspective. What 
could one do with the knowledge gained in collaboration with artists, 
scientists, and engineers? How one could “produce” new meanings in the 
collaborative setting? “Self-repair Lab" is also about acquiring 
knowledge and seeking of answers while making things. Having no access 
to science laboratory and scientists, but having access to kitchen tools 
and internet, one could aspire knowledge, which could help in solving 
problems, especially those related to ones health and the ecosystem.

The installation provides laboratory tools to examine scientific 
experiments in a cultural context and as cultural artifacts. The 
experiments unfold as DIY and DIWO workshops and invite visitors to 
think of self-organization, ecology, interaction, and other topics 
relevant to the self-repair theme. Beside the culturally loaded 
discourses, visitors of the workshops will experience scientific method, 
which is based on observation, analysis and new proposals.