video / installation project by Laura Mahnke, Farina Mietchen, Anne Meerpohl
digital photography and video 7.55 min
We work as a collective. Together we approach a utopian scenario in which past and future collide. We use different materials and move together within an approximate visual language.
For an exhibition situation we set a utopian starting point (Daydream) and situate the exouterus in it. In this way it is possible for us to focus on the queer feminist/ emancipatory potentials, not the deficits, of ectogenesis. Potentials: different/new/diverse family/partnership/parent models, liberation of women from having children, no limitation of fertility (menopause does not matter), making it possible for people without uterus to have children, possible separation of sexuality and reproduction, babies receive controllable food (no more damage from drugs), breaking the causal chain uterus=woman=mother.
Several people lie in an artificial uterus made of foam. Through a warm, pleasant atmosphere the video approaches the feeling that could exist in an artificial uterus. A voice from offstage whispers dull encouraging sentences to the people in the uterus. The audience is confronted with the possible consequences of ectogenesis in an emotionally positive way through a feminist view, raising questions about the emancipatory potential of this technique.
Here is our fictional scene:
We live in a world without patriarchy and other hegemonies.
We live in a world without patriarchy and other hegemonies.
On August 18, 1960, the pill for all sexes was launched and nobody had to become pregnant involuntarily anymore. Everyone could have sex with everyone else as much as they wanted to.
Twenty years later, on the birthday of the Pill in 1980, the Exouterus was officially put into operation. Several children could now grow in it at the same time, with similar or different genetical codes. All combinations of parents were possible, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, no matter if their body had a functioning uterus or not, or whether they wanted to use it or not.
Now, it is September 2020 and a semi-clandestine conservative conference with well-known male speakers is about to begin. The pitchforks are sharpened and posters from the in-house advertising agency are feverishly glued up. They call themselves feminists and demand the reintroduction of natural birth as the only permissible means of reproduction. The Exouterus should become illegal and people using it are to be severely punished. The so-called feminists demand that the sexuality abolished at the end of the 19th century be re-introduced. There should again be only two sexes, as there were then, in which one can be subordinated and exploited. Until a few years ago, the initiative of this remaining sect lived in the underground of darknet, but now they have dared to come out into the light. So far, no one really takes them seriously, but what if their followers become even bigger and louder?
How does one become a human being? What do children and humans need, apart from food and the right chemical composition of the amniotic fluid? What does a machine look like that not only satisfies the physical needs of children and parents? What is the atmosphere in a real uterus and how can a machine adapt this? How does the Exouterusaffect concepts and understandings of families, kinship, relationships, childcare and sexuality?
"Thinking about atmosphere.
How can we transfer our visions into our cocoon?
Being inside and outside."
How can we transfer our visions into our cocoon?
Being inside and outside."
