NTAA22 FINALIST: Theresa Schubert - mEat me

"mEat me" asks for a re-evaluation of our dealings with meat, one’s own body and materiality in times where technology has entered every part of our society and finally also made our bodies reconstructable, as well as the ethical aspect of laboratory processes.

mEAT me, a one year research collaboration between the artist, Kapelica Gallery in Ljubljana and bioengineers from Educell, saw Schubert produce meat grown from her own cells. The artist multiplied cells from a biopsy of her thigh muscles in a serum made from her own blood. A few months later, the piece of in-vitro meat she had artificially grown exited the Educell laboratory to be eaten by the artist in front of and shared with the audience at Kapelica.

The performance is a multimedia piece including video, artificial intelligence representation and spatial sound. The exhibition version is a 2-channel video installation featuring the performance and an artistic documentation form the research project and conceptual background. This is complemented by artefacts from the performance and a large photograph of a piece of fried human meat.