Skin Interface

Skin is an interface.


It is where “self” ends, and “other” begins.


It’s the layer that sits between bodily and non-bodily systems.


Skin is programmed to respond to the sun, where exposure shifts pigment to darker shades to protect the body.
Skin is programmed to respond to injury, forming scabs and scars.


Skin is also programmed from the inside. It responds to age, shedding elasticity and thickness. It is programmed by genetics, determining how much melanin it contains, and thus how dark it appears.


It is also a surface for the immune system, for those of us who are chosen as a canvas. The immune system’s role as a programmer is to determine good from bad, right from wrong, and foreign body from self.


I have had an autoimmune disease called vitiligo for most of my adult life. It is considered a disease because my immune system wrongfully believes that the melanocytes living inside my skin are out to cause harm.


Though, much like AI, we are only fuzzily aware of the immune system’s inner workings. I have very little agency over my immune system, meaning my body is subjected to a constant slow process of erasure. This, I cannot control.


So today, I choose to collaborate with my immune system in a durational drawing which will span the rest of my life. My practice takes systems that are handed down to me, and asks what a re-writing of their algorithm can offer. Today I interface with my immune system through needle and ink as a way to reclaim agency over my skin’s appearance, and also to provoke the disease to progress further.


What you see before you is a line tattooed at the point where the disease is active. My heart-rate is monitored to show the impact the process is having on my bodily systems. But a slower drawing is also taking place. The slow death of my melanocytes, provoked by the act of tattooing, in combination with my genetic code. I plan on re-performing this piece periodically, where marks are accumulated like rings on a tree trunk, or contours of a map.


This is the immune system of an artist.

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This work was created during the performance "Needlework: Live Skin Interface"

https://thelittlemachine.com/event/needlework-live-skin-interface/

Read the catalogue essay by Stelarc here.