Is your body clock on time?

We live in an insatiable society that subdues its members to its technological apparatus, which never sleeps. Transcontinental corporations, the world stock market and increasingly mobile careers may be examples of structures of production, which prominently override the chronobiologies of its human agents, but in reality few escape the subtle pressure of “living life to the fullest” or achieving social success. Where lies the border of this culturally imposed skewing of the human biological rhythm, beyond which the primordial zoe revolts against its bios and begins to devour itself? Which social installations sustain the population on the edge of its circadian tolerance?

The project Solar Displacement is an agora for the deliberation between the acceptance of a culturally suboptimal body and the potential of human agents to emancipate themselves from their biology using alcohol, pharmaceuticals, natural remedies, or phototherapy. A custom application developed for the mobile phone keeps track of the luminosity of the participant’s surroundings and mirrors the light conditions in the rats’ environment. The rats respond to the artificial light by displacing their rhythm of activity as well as with self-medication. The synchronization of the participants with their bioindicators thus allows them to observe their physiological bodies as if they were dissociated, autonomous entities and are simultaneously urged to take responsibility for the well being of the rats’ as well as themselves.

2013/ Author: Špela Petrič / Collaborators: Gašper Derganc (programming), Slavko Glamočanin (programming), Miha Turšič (design) / Acknowledgments: Nejc Novak / Supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana Department for Culture / The project is part of the KiiCS - Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science programme, supported by a grant from European Comission, 7th Framework Programme

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