Feel Me, Touch Me: The hymNext Project
Contribution to "Sk-Interfaces" 2008 Exhibition Book, Edited by Jens Hauser

The hospital and its anti-septic culture has been a big part of my upbringing and thus have informed my science/art practice. I have become both attracted and repulsed by human skin-to-skin contact, fascinated by the conflicting urges in efforts to get close to someone. The hymNext Project represents the conflicting affair between art and science, interior and exterior body, person-to-person connections. The stylized hymens are made from mammalian epithelial cells scavenged from the abattoir, the lab and/or myself. The hymen tissue cultures are a combination of my vaginal cells, rodent smooth muscle tissue, bovine epithelial cells, and bovine collagen scaffolding grown in nutrient media…the mixture of my body tissue and rodent tissue coexist in the same space in vitro. My cells are part of the sculptures because I want myself to be new art media, thus “giving myself away” to the art process. In each sculpture with my cells, my DNA is a personal signature.

Replacement hymens confront cultural and traditional functions of the thin membrane. The act of reproducing my vaginal cells gestures toward the one-time occurrence and breakage of the biologically virginal hymen. The hymen is neither inside nor outside the vaginal canal. In philosophy, “hymen” is a stance in between two discursive positions, without tendency to one side. In biological and philosophical modalities, I am, like the hymen, in between the artistic and scientific disciplines. The resulting art pieces are a conjuration of new symbols to encourage discussion about scientific research and body politics (Davis and Morris, 2007).

Biologically, the hymen assists the maturing female to propagate beneficial flora (Hobday, et al, 1997). Ironically in the social realm, the knowledge of the biological function had become less important than enforcing the social meanings of the inconspicuous thin skin. The social context of the hymen as a sign of purity is based solely on gender control and familial economics in traditional cultures around the world. The consequences of an absent hymen in strict traditional cultures can range from family shame to even the death of the female who is deemed a non-virgin. In the hymNext Project the celebration of the recreated hymen is emphasized - and repeatable when desired. The hymNext hymen symbolizes the united front for both parties involved in the sexual and discursive act, a barrier that is broken down to begin a relationship or open a channel of communication between two people regardless of sexual assignment or preference. By creating hymens that are based on the remnants of traditional cultures, antiquated gender rules are disengaged, new iconographies are associated, and the symbolism once again goes into flux. It is symbolic and linguistic flux within a progressive society that allows the general perceptions of the skin to be re-examined, challenged and to evolve into new meanings.

I regard skin equally from both the social and medical aspects in research and practice. The same organ that separates the internal and external worlds is also subjected to the interpretation/perception of visual and sensual cues. Cues are separate from biological functions of the skin and are cultural constructions based not just on texture or color, but also from the person who inhabits the fleshy outfit. The creative intent is to work with the skin or tissue separate from the gendered body; therefore the work process and final piece challenge or de-emphasize the idea of assigned gender. The technical research and manipulation of cells in a novel environment does not include gender at all, but purely the cell as a living, architectural being.

In the scientific realm, the skin was explored in wound management of ancient times and is widely used in contemporary medical research. Three thousand years ago, Hindus surgeons used the subject’s buttock skin to reconstruct the nose after being disfigured from punishment for their crime. In the mid-1500’s, Tagliacozzi of Italy was considered to be the pioneer of plastic surgery based on his work of applying skin grafts to battle wounds of soldiers (Herman, 2002). With autologous skin in these examples, the donor and recipient are the same person — there is no risk of organ rejection and therefore a blessing to wound therapy. On the other hand, xeno- or allo- graft skin originating from same or different species has a higher chance of rejection – a result from the recipient body’s own immune system of activating the T-cell response to foreign bodies (Pierson, et al, 1989). Rejection or acceptance on a molecular level depends on the communication between cells in determining in/compatibility (Rosenberg and Singer, 1988). This cellular language is sometimes beyond human control and therefore dictates the experiment or procedure. In research, the skin continues to be a useful tool in testing chemical and environmental effects that ultimately lead to safer products and pathological understanding of human reaction to substances. Again, cell compatibility and rejection are driving factors in the studies. Skin that it is grown in vitro, without a human host, eliminates the use of actual human subjects to dangerous materials. In the medical and scientific professions, skin is highly valued as a protective and versatile barrier, but feared when it becomes the cause of contamination or disease. Therefore, the viability of a replaceable hymen as a possible skin graft was conceptualized in the hymNext Project as a novel body adornment.

The skin, especially in the act of prejudgment, allows the viewer to weigh the good and the bad of its owner. Human behavior consistently puts into play the personal filter towards their world to decide what is dis/agreeable. As a visual cue in literature, historical and famous writers such as Shakespeare used the extremity of skin color to insinuate the type of character portrayed. Black represented danger or abjectivity and white stood for innocence or virtue. This literary paradigm became a fundamental formula in story writing. Roland Barthes outlines the use of symbolic language into three stages of information transference in reference to the meaning of an image (Barthes, 1964). In the case of skin: linguistically, skin is described by the author and words or messages are attached to form a definition; the denotative statement is regarded as a perceived truth shared among the collection of readers; and connotatively, the meaning permeates into the culture and is accepted as a rule of measurement when applying its meaning to other subjects. Of course, the so-called rules are malleable cross-culturally. It is through this process that stereotypes, archetypes and anomalies are divided to format social opinions.

References

Davis, L. and Morris, D. (2007). Biocultures manifesto. New Literary History. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Hobday, A.J., Haury, L. and Dayton, P.K. (1997). Function of the human hymen. Medical Hypotheses. 49(2):171-3.

Herman, A. (2002). The History of Skin Grafts. Journal of Drugs in Dermatology. New York: International Society for Dermatologic Surgery.

Pierson, RN et al. (1989). Xernogeneic skin graft rejection is specially dependent on CD4+ T cells. Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol. 170. New York: Rockefeller University Press.

Rosenberg, A. and Singer, A. (1988). Evidence that the Effector Mechanism of Skin Allograft Rejection is Antigen-Specific. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol, 85, No. 2.

Barthes, R. (1964). The Rhetoric of Image. Image - Music - Text, trans. Stephen Heath.
New York: Noonday Press.

Image source: FACT, UK, 2008. Artist: Zane Berzina.

Book Synopsis: "Sk-Interfaces"
Skin represents a place where art, science, philosophy and social culture intersect. With a growing number of bodily extensions and the continuous discovery of new areas – physical, virtual and psychological – the clear distinctive lines between individuals, countries and even species are beginning to blur. Advances in bio-medical research together with deconstructivist theories in philosophy are reflected in the work of many artists using skin, materially or metaphorically, as an interface, whose work goes beyond the descriptive surface of the skin, to explore issues of xeno-transplants, trans-species and trans-racial exchanges. In recent years, a trend towards the analysis of skin, its functions and meanings, has emerged in the practice of many artists using wet biology, bio-architecture and self-experimentation.

Jens Hauser has been involved in much of the development in this area and this book provides an engaging, critical and thought-provoking approach to how current technologies are changing our perceptions of the body, the self and the interactions between bodies.