2006
Starch and plaster, binder and
flexible epoxy infiltrant (white),
3D print (Z-printing), tortoise skeleton bones
12 x 16 x 12 cm

The work Chelonian Urn is part of the Synthetic Syncretism series. The Urn and the Relict are both vascilating objects, precursors for the Altar and Sacristy works. Vacillating objects are spatially consistent structures able to immerse physical attributes into the realms of a digital environment.

For that purpose, similar to the process of a magnetic resonance image, the geometry of the physical object is scanned, within the process, the object becomes dual in its nature and could according to Peter Anders already become a cybrid. The virtual doppelganger is able to carry, breed, and later even extract parts of itself and/or added geometries of pure virtuality into the real. We can speak of a mirrored reflection of a real fertilisation or pregnancy of the virtual with the scanned physical as a comparable geometrical womb carrying all necessary possibilities to emerge, hatch or be reborn back to reality.

The urn is a vessel – amalgamating fragments of a found chelonian skeleton on the cemetery of Havana with the residues of a sacrificial act – bound and embedded in the object, 3D printed and fit into the physical construct of the tortoise.