A.I. mis hijos
This is a project that comes from a personal experience living with a chihuahua dog named Volta. It is a response to her fake pregnancy and the health system and ideas we have regarding our companion species.
It pretends to encourage empathy and debate about the biopolitics with the animals that become part of a family.
it is a series of AI virtual descendency of Volta after sterilization, the preservation of her/its womb and the speculative organs to preservation of oocytes from dogs.
The story begins when Volta, a chihuahua with papillon dog ascendency, was about to get two human years of age, the time to decide if she/it will get a hysterectomy was getting closer, a decision I unconsciously avoided as I felt unprepared to make a decision of fertility and motherhood for another specie, however, Volta also have another companion, my husband that had a stronger opinion on the subject.
It was time to decide, Chihuahua dogs tend to have problems giving birth, Chihuahuas are at risk of developing complications during pregnancy and delivery, and many must give birth via cesarean section. This is mainly because Chihuahuas have narrow hips and their puppies have large heads, which puts them at risk of being stuck in the birthing canal. A point to remark on here is that the birth of chihuahua dogs then is mediated by technological intervention. Statistics show that sterilized dogs tend to live longer, and the egoistic desire to extend her/its life was considered, do not blame me, as this same desire is shared bringing even companies that try to clone dogs for a cyborg extended long life.
Volta was taken to the clinic, a place she/it usually enjoys as it was her dog care meeting point, the doctor and her always bonded and she/it showed signals of feeling secure. The first attempt to undergo surgery was blocked by the unsupervised snack Volta took at midnight, and her stomach was not empty and ready for the operation. We waited a couple of days, and finally, the procedure was made in a couple of hours.
As a little reward, my husband got her a new toy, Volta took around 10 hours to start walking again in a good mood, and immediately got interested in the new fluffy toy, a relationship that will be different from her other toys, as the day passed, Volta did not separate from that toy, crying next to it and cuddle next to it all day. My obsession to accompany her in the recovery allowed me to catch her changes in behaviour and then the second day after recovery she start lactating, milk came out of her nipples and insisted in get closer to her new toy.
The behaviour and physiological changes correspond to the phantom pregnancy syndrome in dogs. The emotionality of this process made me think about the biopolitics of the reproduction of other animals, my own possible future pregnancies, and my reproductive organs. In an artistic desperate attempt of understanding this, I went back to the clinic and ask for her striped uterus, as lucky as I am, I got her organ and the uterus of a second dog that just underwent surgery that day, and the consent of the owners was granted.
Volta was complete again, one part in the -20 fridge and the other taking care of an inanimate puppy, in the shape of a pink pig. This experience marked my understanding of animal motherhood and increased my concern about the best way to create relationships, systems of health care and politics with dogs and the gap between humans and non-humans.
An example of the effect of biopower within contemporary government is the focus on meeting the broad biological needs of human populations: today government concerns itself with the deployment of resources for education and training, public health, the facilitation of relationships and organisations, fertility and ―family planning, the management of the economy, and the generalised financial well being of populations, my question was how that is translated into our relationships with dogs, especially if I thrive to make kin, learning from philosophers like Donna Haraway and her companion species manifesto, I wanted to make sense of this experience.
Dogs are getting jobs, dogs are becoming family members, and there are genetic projects to understand the genome and biotechnological interventions for breeding them and following their racial degradation. The experiments that I have developed come from a very personal aim, maybe guilt, and mostly projection of my human perception of pregnancy and motherhood.
Could I bring back the lost opportunity of the lineage of Volta? What is the human relationship with reproductive internal organs? Can technology help us to make a new narrative of a dog’s life?
My first experiment had the goal to preserve the organs of Volta, as a responsibility to take care of everything which means being the guardian of this animal. I decide to remove the cells from her uterus, to remain with the cartilage biological scaffold of her organ, as the possibility to bring it to life later, could we resurrect her opportunity to be a mother? Half of the organ got disintegrated and was reduced as it was covered by fat and thin tissue.
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A.I. Mis Hijos
The artistic research is now a project I called “AI mis hijos” inspired by the scream of the legend “La llorona” a colonial ghost story of a woman that wonders next to the rivers looking for her kids that were drowned in the waters, so she continues screaming for her sons “Ay mis hijos”. The project is a series of pictures created by an AI (neural network) with a database of Volta's pictures and other different dogs, as the possible descendency of Volta now living in a speculative world embedded on the internet.
And finally, the creation of speculative organs like receptacles to save the oocytes of dogs, continuing with the framework of dogs delivery is mediated by technology, making them part cyborgs, these models are an escape from my intense experience of getting acquainted with the internal organs of Volta and reflecting in my own uterus.
The uteri are speculative 3D models, digital images and animations. The next step is to 3D print some scaffolds as well as a dog toy, as a pillow with a mechanism of sound.
Bodies without Organs/Organs without Bodies
"Bodies without Organs" (BwO) is a concept introduced by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It refers to a state of existence where one's body isn't confined or controlled by societal norms or structures. Instead, it's free to express itself in its true form, liberated from imposed identities or limitations.
"On the other hand, "Organs without Bodies" is a concept introduced by the philosopher Slavoj Žižek. It refers to a situation where societal structures or ideologies function independently of actual human bodies or individuals. In other words, these systems operate on their own, sometimes even at the expense of individual agency or well-being.
The relationship between these concepts lies in their exploration of the interplay between individuals and larger societal structures. "Bodies without Organs" explores the potential for individual liberation and expression outside of societal norms, while "Organs without Bodies" examines how societal structures can sometimes dominate or overshadow individual agency. Both concepts offer insights into the complexities of human existence within larger social frameworks.
Quite literally here we present organs without bodies free of their anatomical function of bearing offspring, to talk about the social perception of reproductive organs to reveal the other aspects of its existence and connections with the body,
The feminine bodies rebel into queer organs.
Hopefully, in the future, I can integrate a biological investigation of dog oocytes and tissue culture into this project, for now, I will look for laboratory opportunities and residencies.
I hope you enjoy the story behind this project in progress, and your empathy towards other species got tickled by the idea, and objects displayed here.
Kisses
Laura and Volta