Can a body be reduced to a mere shell - a vessel into which personal or historical stories are embedded?
The video Beneath My Feet by Karolína Matušková and Lucie Zelmanová does not pose this question directly but rather explores it through the body of a female scientist, who, on a hostile, arid plain in an unspecified time and place, discovers evidence of the existence of a long-extinct species of mollusk. The silvery, biomorphic mass of the clam gradually dematerializes, transforms, and reveals its accumulated sediment as soon as it is discovered by a human - until the boundary between the creature’s shell and the human body is no longer clear.
The organic shape of the clam triggers an avalanche of emotions and details from long-forgotten stories within the main character, even though she does not consciously recall them. The body reveals its physical memory, which appears to be a central theme here. By realizing her own movement in (a not entirely clear, yet concrete) time and space, the scientist´s figure detaches itself from her physical existence in the here and now and becomes an organic form intertwining with a stream of personal memories. The clam's adaptability thus works as a key: it unlocks layers that the body has stored without conscious effort.
The work uses the technique of morphing – a fluid blending of two images, in this case literally two bodies - but goes beyond its conventional use. Whereas traditional morphing only visually blends two different forms, the artists use morphing as a tool to show the real permeability of boundaries: between human and animal, real and virtual, the extinct and the nascent. The scientist becomes a subject that is no longer purely human but neither entirely posthuman – for a moment, her existence and the existence of a clam merge into a single unstable, transient form. Thus, the answer to the opening question does not come in the form of a statement, but as an image: the body is not merely a vessel that simply carries stories but it is shaped by them and constantly rewritten.
text: Mariana Pecháčková
Metaclams 1, 2, 3
DOP:
Filip Kopecký
Alien:
Karolína Matušková
RAP:
Valley girl, uberduck.ai
publication: 6. 1. 2025