Rhapsody for an Expanded Biotechnological Apparatus at the Tang

Rhapsody for an Expanded Biotechnological Apparatus is a tactile sound installation located in the elevator of the Tang Teaching Museum that connects hidden artifacts of science to familiar domains of the everyday. The installation reenvisions the elevator as a biological cell and its visitors as proteins as they are prompted to engage with a haptic textiles sculpture while listening to a sonic tour of a biotech laboratory. The soundscape is a wandering journey created from recordings made at biotech company Integral Molecular, during my artist residency at the Science Center in Philadelphia. Robotic movements of machines, gurgling dish drains, and conversations among scientists come together to create a soundscape entitled Chaperone. In biology, a “chaperone” is a type of protein that helps other proteins fold properly inside the lumen of a cell. The accompanying textiles sculpture entitled Lumen, prompts visitors to embody the biological process of protein folding when sitting on the rug made from the fiber of laboratory llamas and alpacas who are used to produce antibodies for human drugs including vaccines. Instructions guide visitors to remove shoes and sit cross-legged as a choreographed gesture that embodies the folding of proteins inside a cell’s lumen. Tactile transducers beneath the rug vibrate with the bumps, clicks and bangs of laboratory machines in the soundscape. The fiber for the sculpture was donated by a vivarium at a laboratory that produces biological products for biotech research and pharmaceutical industry. I hand wash, card and spin the fiber into yarn for my textiles sculptures and installations. The work questions notions of the presence and absence of bodies evoking the mutability of categories that delineate their status and renders the elevator as a space for contemplation of the unseen labor of both humans and non-humans within an often-invisible system.