bodysnatch (bush conspiracy)

2021

acacia and eucalyptus branches, plasti-dip

this series was designed to function as an ecological pilot experiment and an art installation. it explores paranoia as a psychic cost of the Western scientific tradition through the aesthetic of online conspiracy theories. reports of alien bodysnatching include stories of having been studied “scientifically” in ways similar to how humans study nonhuman organisms – alien abductees recount having been kidnapped, force bred, probed, maimed, or otherwise manipulated before being returned home. here, i cut, kidnapped, altered, replaced, and photographed parts of dead individuals (trees) in the environment in Yamatji Country in western australia as a part of a scientific research project.

in the process i created two different kinds of objects: (1) the sculptures themselves — logs that i abducted from a nature reserve, covered in a plastic film, and replaced back into the environment– and (2) the ‘evidence’: photographs and digital collages of the sculptures. these images borrow the aesthetics of the dodgy ‘evidence’ ubiquitous in conspiracy media. the work highlights that though the goal of a scientific study may be rather inert, the practices activate a worry underpinning alien conspiracies: what if the tools i use to understand the world were used against me?

associated scientific paper(s)

Siu, W.M., Eckersley, J., Dwyer, J.M., Mayfield, M.M., and James, A.R.M. Under review. Linking species performance and community composition to environmental heterogeneity: insights into spatial coexistence in annual plant communities.