On Alice Morey and Emily Mulenga's
Data Blood III

Return to the instinct

A text by Luz Hitters
December 2021 

A digital platform hosts a new edition of Alice Morey and Emily Mulenga's "Data Blood" series. On previous occasions, Morey and Mulenga explored the unification of data and blood through immersive environments, addressing themes such as humanity's drive for longevity and the quest for immortality. This time, however, the British artists chose an interactive online exhibition as their medium. This is an inseparable aspect of the artists' inquiry, reversing the cycle of their previous message, from blood to data, and now from data to blood. 

The exhibition takes place in "External Pages", an online gallery space that claims to exist "on the outskirts of the internet". It depicts an operating room that echoes Data_Blood 2.0 (2019), with a sterile operating table, a being connected to a screen and uncanny body images projected on it. This time, however, the room also includes plants, suggesting a further step in their exploration of life.

Each object in the online viewing room introduces a phrase from the Artists' Manifesto, a feminist anthem of empowerment and defiance in the aftermath of awakening:

“The data in our blood is calling 

One foot in cyberspace

One foot in the wild

We prioritise the primal

Recognise the sacred

Both goddess and cyborg

We heal ourselves

Reach back to the soil, resist domination

We won’t be sanitised nor silenced.”

 The work could be seen as an organic evolution of the former project, extending its search towards the metaphysical. Developed during the pandemic, amidst alienation and screen overflow, Morey and Mulenga highlight humanity's need to reconnect with our primal instincts; with the organic. As such, Data Blood III presents itself as a safe territory to reconnect, reflect and rebel.  

When asked about their choice of medium, the artists state that they aim to confront the patriarchy that inhabits much technological expansion as an industry designed and dominated by men. The work seeks to give voice to the feminine "crushed by relentless technological expansion".

The third edition of Data Blood gives a new dimension to the subversion of homogeneity. It introduces the essential aspect of spirituality in non-conformism. This space opposes uniformity, suggesting that variety and authenticity are the keys to survival. 

The exhibition will be available until December 25th 2021: https://externalpages.org