FORENSIC LOVE AND VISCERAL DATA
BIO-ANTIDOTE FOR ROMANTIC LOVE
Cecilia Vilca

"A labyrinth of blue cells and acids,
A tower of words that never reaches heaven."
(J.E. Eielson)

We start from the hypothesis that romantic love is a disease, a linguistic virus, the malware that constitutes one of the basic pillars of patriarchy, as a social technology. It is the beginning of all violence that is inflicted on our body-booty. Diluted in songs, sayings and compliments is "gently" inoculated in us. That is why in this art project we propose the urgent creation of a biomaterial, performative-ritualistic-scientific-medical, an antidote to cure (us) of romantic love and stop, eradicate this chronic pandemic.

The raw material of the bio-antidote (s) will be our visceral data, which is obtained from the contrast and verification of these romantic love sayings with some medical analysis techniques (imaging tests, biochemical analysis, pathological studies, chromatography research, neurological exams, etc.) hacked into their significance and interaction (dose/spell indication) with the participant-patient. Therefore, in this project, biomaterial meaning comes from bio fabrication but especially from medicine: a material that the organism can tolerate and that is often made up of parts of the recipient human body itself. In this case ours.

Since romantic love is a virus, medical protocols will be followed to identify and treat the disease: Diagnosis, Creation of antidote and finally Dosing, dividing the project into three stages. Our preliminary diagnosis is that the language being a virus enters the body from an initial point to expand and affect the different organs. The power granted to these phrases makes them sentences of death. Each saying acts on a specific organ, curses it. The bio-antidote is created from the data and matter of the "sick" organ that is the one that has received and assimilated the curse of romantic love.



The project begins by analyzing these popular sayings, the internal programming of romantic love and its physical effect on our emotional body. Phrases that not only refer to an "interior" and organs, but also use mostly physical terms (death, killing) and even medical (breathing, palpitations). These are the symptoms of the disease called "love”, but they are not just ours, they are the choral symptoms of our sick society. As in every diagnostic start what we do is listening.



SEQUENCE OF PROPAGATION
This group of “symptoms” (sayings) will establish the possible sequence of spread and severity levels of the disease, as well as the possible medical techniques to collect and analyze the visceral data to create the bio-antidote and its dosage in specific spells to combat each "saying-curse". Some of these techniques will be less invasive (imaging tests and analysis) than others (tissue and cell extraction) and will mix scientific-medical and ritualistic protocols. Making fiction with Western medicine, creating a body performance narrative.

Contagion/Inoculation
Phrase: Love enters through the eyes.
Techniques proposed: Optical Coherence Tomography-OCT, Schirmer Test, Corneal Topography.

First symptoms
Phrase: I feel butterflies in my stomach
Medical techniques proposed: Abdominal Ultrasound, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Coproculture.

Initial stage
Phrase: You accelerate my pulse and take my breath away.
Medical techniques proposed: Pulse Wave Analysis-PWA and Echocardiogram.

Febrile stage
Phrase: There is chemistry between us.
Medical techniques proposed: SMAC Study 24, Saliva Test, Mineral Hair Analysis-HTMA, Skin tests by puncture or scraping.
Phrase: TWe are made for each other.
Medical techniques proposed: Histocompatibility Antigen Test, DNA test, Biopsy.

Critical / Peak Stage
Phrase: You broke my heart.
Medical techniques proposed: Complete Blood Count, Cardiac Computed Tomography Scan.

Possibility of recurrence
Phrase: I don't know if I will be able to forget your scent.
Medical techniques proposed: Liquid Chromatography-HPLC, Brain Ultrasound, Electroencephalography.

Final stage
Phrase: I can't live without you.
Medical techniques proposed: Respiratory Rate Analysis, Heart Rate Measurement, Magnetic Resonance Imaging-MRI.


Then, analyzing our social fabric, we respond, returning to it, not only the possibility of a cure with a bio-antidote but also its dosage as indications-spells, created from the same sayings that will be re-evaluated through social networks. This performatic dimension of the project allows us to hack our body-minds and at the same time decolonize the western medical tradition. Because what assumptions are behind these traditional myths about love? What medical-historical references endorse these sayings-curses?

We contaminate each other the methodologies of science and belief to give a ritualistic dimension to a heteronormative white western medical apparatus. We light the candle to all the saints, we call all the specialists, we dance to all the gods. A DIY/DIWO/DIT epigenetics. We are the modest inoculated witnesses of Donna Haraway and at the same time we enchant everything as Paul Preciado reflects. We the zero patients, offer our visceral data in-love: blood, feces, sweat, tears. What will be the selected components? We do not know but as a starting point we have a corpse, a metaphorical body full of other deaths and hopes. Ready to be read. A forensic love.