Vessels of Care and Control: Prototypes of Compostcubator and Hivecubator

Developments in the life sciences and biomedical technologies tend to use revolutionary rhetoric and the illusion of breaking free from hegemonic social constructions; however these constructions are inbuilt within the developments of these technologies, their interpretation and application. Through a series of historical and contemporary narratives the artists would like to push further the goalposts and look at the notion of the canonical bio-vessel – the Incubator – as a point of departure and “escape” from socially and human centric engrained discourses. Incubators not only serve as a rich, performative and provocative departure for stories about life and biopolitics, they also contest biological determinism and genohype, and are a place where the notion of life can be explored from the non-human perspective reflecting on past and contestable future scenarios. Here the artists explore narratives of the incubator both as a contraption of care/nurture and controlled life as well as a conceptual and biopolitical apparatus.