CLEAN MACHINES
“The diseases evoked by these clean machines are ‘no more’ than the minuscule coding changes of an antigen in the immune system, ‘no more’ than the experience of stress”.
‘A cyborg manifesto’ by Donna Haraway.
Clean machines
By: Camilo Londoño HernándezFinal exercise for the class ‘Post Human in the Human Epoch’ Lecturers: Jakob Wirth and Marina Resende Santos MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies
Winter Semester, 2021-22 Bauhaus Universität Weimar, Germany.
1st moment: cleaning the body, losing the language
Friday night. There are posters with the word “pills” in different languages covering the walls of the classroom. A sound of a mechanical beat as a heartbeat sounds softly in loop. There is a lamp on the floor. Next to the lamp there are a little bag, a pile of envelopes, a bottle of water, and glasses. Inside the bag there are toothbrushes, toothpaste, and Listerine.
-I am in the classroom alone.
-I open the door.
-They enter the classroom in silence.
-I let them walk around trying to understand what is going on.
-I take my shoes off.
-They follow me and take their shoes off.
-I stretch my body a little bit and they follow me.
-I sit down on the floor. They sit down on the floor.
-I look at them and breathe.
-I take my glasses off. If they have glasses, so they take their off.
-I take the bag and pick the toothbrushes up.
-I pass them to the person next to me.
-I take the glasses and pass them to the person next to me. 3 glasses for each person.
-I serve water on one of the glasses, Listerine on the other one, and leave the third one empty.
-I take the bag again and pick the napkins up.
-I take one napkin and pass the other one to the person next to me.
-Once everybody has a cleaning set, I start to brush my teeth.
-They follow me. We can use the empty glass to spit out.
-When we finish, I open the bag again and pick the bottle of pills up.
-I open the bottle, take a pill, swallow it, drink water, and pass the bottle to the person next to me.
-Once everybody takes their pills, I take the envelopes and pass them to the person next to me.
- I breathe and say loud: “open the letter and read it now. Hasta mañana”.
-I take my stuff in silence and leave the building.
-The exercise ends.
Dear patient, human, you.
Here is a collective experience of healing.
Now, you are me. You have been tested positive for HIV.
From tonight until your death (or until we find the cure), you will take this prescription. Its side effects go from itchy blisters on your skin to psychotic attacks. They are rare, but they could happen. If you got some of them, please get in contact with your doctor as soon as possible. We will change your medical scheme. The most common consequence is a sleep disorder at the beginning of your treatment. Never quit your medication. You are safe in our hands.
When I take my pills, my language is gone. Therefore, I don´t have so much to say.
Use your imagination and take a rest.
Sleep well. I wish you beautiful dreams.
With love, Camilo.
2nd moment: side effects of the daily life
Saturday morning. The speakers play a personal playlist with music like pop, reggaeton and rap. The posters with the word in different languages are still hung up onto the walls. There is a large table in the middle of the classroom. Over the table, there are a bottle of orange juice, fruits, bread, and cheese, also glasses, napkins, and plates.
-They start getting in the classroom. Meanwhile I am preparing the food. -Once every is sitting down, I take the posters down.
-I put each poster in correspondence with the mother tongue of each participant of the exercise.
-I explain as natural as I can that now we have the language back, so we can talk about our side effects.
-To guide the dialogue, I direct them to turnout their posters and read the questions.
-I pass the food and we chat. There is no order to talk. It is not mandatory. -After we ate and chat, I take the bag again.
-I pick a pile of envelopes up.
-I pass the letter to them.
-We open the envelopes.
-I read it aloud.
-The exercise ends.
Dear friend,
You are not me anymore. I never could be you. At least, we tried it.
Now we have our language back, our mother tongue behind our broken English. For me, there are things beyond the time and so deep in our skin that we cannot understand with words, with human tools; and, I don´t know if I want to explain them. So, because of this lacking, am I a cyborg, a post-something? Who knows? Who cares?
Despite this corporeal di-sympathy, the science and the hyper-modernization are working inside of all of us with their clean machines. In silence or collectively, each of you has your own. They grasp our blood, brush our bones, test our breathe and we live longer and longer. Yes, I want to live, no survive, to live; but I don´t want to pay back with the colonization of my moral and their systematical judgment. I don´t want to be a post-human. I rather let this emptiness of knowledge holding —surrounding— my body, instead of controlling everything again.
I like to be clean and neat, but some nights I don´t like to brush my teeth.
With anger and love, Camilo.