A few as a teenager. When I was four or five, someone we knew died right in front of us. And, I mean, it is something I don't talk about -- it's not always relevant to, say, an artist statement. But I think it's something that I've latched onto my body.
I was curious just because I always wonder how people feel about things like viewings. Like, I get the lowering of the casket. That to me is easier to understand 'cause it's just literal. I had a friend die when I was a teenager, and I decided right away, the way some people do, I wanted to remember them the way they were. But maybe I already knew I couldn't handle it.
Viewings have always felt strange -- looking at an object that's no longer conscious. That's what's wild about your work, Angel, even in a dead body, there are things still alive and moving.
Bacteria don't follow our beliefs about life and death. The ones that keep you alive right now are the same ones that will digest your body when you die. It's like dark matter. These invisible universes are happening in parallel to each other. That's how I see the Petri dish garments I make -- each dish is its own universe. They're like microcosms moving in tandem. It's not even about death anymore; it becomes about life, about living.
I am thinking now about how the West defines itself by this separation from death. Can you talk about how the necrological and the geopolitical come together in your work?
I think about myth. In RABIT's music, too -- Communion, Baptism -- there are these myth-building elements. Names of tracks, the imagery, the narrative arcs. Myth is how humans organize the unknown.
I started using the word bacteriomancy -- bacteria + mancy -- to describe my work. It's divination through bacteria. There have always been rituals for handling human remains, you know, like Zoroastrianism, where the earth is very sacred, and you don't bury the dead in the earth. Instead, you construct these towers called towers of silence, and you place the bodies on the top of these towers for decomposition to happen in the air. So, throughout time, we've figured out ways to make sense of this, whether it's religious or scientific, whatever the name is. Myth lasts longer than science. Myths travel across centuries.
Most people live inside myths without realizing it. I grew up Catholic. I've always been interested in the sacraments as rituals. Over time, I started unpacking them -- what these terms could mean outside of dogma. You want to die every night and wake up new.
Every time I make an album, there's a death of self. You go through confidence, doubt, fear, and release. Then, when you release it, you can't control how people react. You shouldn't want to. You're just facilitating something.
The MASS BODYfilm was made in creative union with Chino Amobi, who created the soundscape, and Sausha, who wears the dress. How did this collaboration come about?
Chino and I have been in conversation for a couple of years. We're both obsessed with trailer structure -- the one-minute emotional punch. So, we built the sound like a movie trailer, something that escalates and then drops. I love short, concentrated bursts of emotion.
Having Sausha in your film is like having a sports car. The plated Petri dish dress was custom-fitted to her body. While filming, the sealed dishes on the dress began to sweat from her body heat, forming condensation -- like the Petri dishes were alive. It was uncanny and perfect.
MASS BODY is dependent not only on the donation program but also on the involvement of the future viewer, who is confronted with death on an obscenely intimate level. What do you want people to get from that confrontation?
Yeah, I mean, it's the big question. Why create something like this? For me, human decomposition as a medium and the study of human remains recovery in the forensic context is always associated with law enforcement, violence, trauma, genocide, but decomposition is also one of the greatest mysteries of our existence -- something we will all eventually confront. MASS BODY is about widening that perspective, a site for the artistic study of human decomposition. Ecology demands an intimacy with other beings. What happens when we explore decomposition as participation, community, and possibility?