ELIXIR 2004
Concepts of body and space merge in Elixir. The artist has fully exploited the particularities of Volume!’s space setting up an installation that alters the overall volume of the space. It has in fact been turned into an unusual laboratory for research in genetic modification, where a solitary scientist experiments her own manipulating madness. From this perturbing and theatrical setting the Elixir installation aims to stimulate considerations on the themes of genetic modification as a metaphor for media mystifications and mental conditioning. This “small theatre of experimental folly” partly explores themes linked to mechanisms of control and centralized social coercion which have already inspired the artist in the past.
Genetically modified beings are created to become her slaves by being exposed to the elixir of life. The elixir doesn’t work and they whistle cheerfully as they are destroyed by the experimental madness.
Laplante’s performance for the opening emphasizes its initial premise by experimenting her own hysterical genetic monstrosities in person.
Teresa Macrì
But you had to be there
Installation at Volume!, Rome,