The video explores and shows the performance Xenological Entanglements. 001a: Trying Plastic Variations held by the Biofriction artist Adriana Knouf.
Xenological Entanglements is a multi-year project exploring the xenomogrification of the tranxxeno body. With altered scientific technologies the artist makes herself the other. In 001. Eromatase at the Kapelica Gallery/Kersnikova Institute, the artist aims to genetically engineer testicular cells (known as Leydig cells) to overproduce oestrogen within a microgravity context. Growing out of the artist’s desire to be one of the first transgender people in space, Eromatase begins to construct the necessary tools for a DIY space biology programme, including instrument construction and novel genetic engineering techniques.

Premiering at the City of Women festival, 001a: Trying Plastic Variations is a lecture-performance that frames this project within previous enactments of self-experimentation with her voice, hormones, and the audacity of tranxxeno imaginaries of outer space. With vocal transmutations based on the artist’s own self-directed arduous voice training, meditations on her prior work that has orbited the Earth aboard the International Space Station and early discoveries from the Eromatase project, the lecture performance will enact novel constellations of the body that arise from an understanding of its malleability.

The project is part of the Biofriction residency.