Abstract

It is thought that matter can be invoked through ineffable means, through forces of intuition, inspiration or reflection. From what fragile testimonies and bodily influences arouse. This paper is concerned with the interplay between encounter and insistence in the experimental philosophies of contemporary "emergent" science. It considers how the biological can persuade variations of life that generate natural, social and cultural existence. Through architectural and aesthetic tropes, the writing gestures towards an esoteric materiality as it considers the transformative momentum of bodies offered by advances in fertility science and in regenerative skin technologies, and explores the performative yet quiescent spaces of their lived negotiations. What was once thought the culturally artifactual body now grants artful access to scientific knowledge creation through its inherently unsettled nature and the attendance of alteration. Experimentally, this paper wonders if questions of corporeal ecology can be sustained in an era of scientific knowing (still) imbued with vulnerability.