Body Stones and Other Bodies is a series of conversations led by artist alfonso borragán with artist Sarah Bayliss. These discussions explore the strange gems generated inside our bodies: kidney stones, bladder stones, gallstones, rhinoliths, pancreatic stones, and sialoliths. The stones, sedimented within us, defy conventional definitions. Neither stone nor tissue, they exist in a state of in-between. These ambiguous entities, currently housed in the UCL Pathology Museum, represent the "other body"—the otherness of our matter, and maybe a possible material form of Spinoza's trans-individual.

Body Stones and Other Bodies

In this chapter we talk with Hannah Cornish, curator at the Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL with Thomas Kador, Lecturer in Creative Health on the UCL Arts & Sciences programme. Hannah provides intellectual access to a collection of 68,000 specimens. She designs and facilitates museum teaching, collaborating with researchers and artists, managing collection documentation, and working on events, exhibitions, and projects. Thomas has a background in archaeology and chemical engineering. His research and teaching interests include object-based learning, culture, health and wellbeing, public and community-based approaches to heritage and everyday practices. Together we discuss body stones as liminal objects, their preservation, collection, and biographies. We explore the many layers of meaning that can be read and see what we can add to their story.

Date of episode recording: 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z
Duration: 46'34''
Language of episode: English
Presenter:alfonso borragán and Sarah Bayliss

PRESERVATION, COLLECTION AND BIOGRAPHIES

In this chapter we talk with the artist, programmer, writer and performer Martin Howse. Martin explores connections between the earth, its living organisms, geophysical phenomena, software, and the human psyche, working with speculative hardware based on environmental data in open physical systems, code that investigates the layers of abstraction, free software and situational performances and interventions. During the last years Martin has been exploring the geological within the body in projects like Tiny Mining or Becoming Geological. We talk with Martin to find out more about body mineralogy, extraction, synchronicity and immortality.

Date of episode recording: 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z
Duration: 34'58''
Language of episode: English
Presenter:alfonso borragán and Sarah Bayliss
Guests: Martin Howse
Producer: UCL

MINERALOGY EXTRACTION AND SYNCHRONICITY

In this chapter we talk with the social anthropologist Roger Sansi. Roger has worked on Afro-Brazilian culture and religion, the concept of the fetish, and on contemporary art. His publications include the books Fetishes and Monuments, Sorcery in the Black Atlantic, Economies of relation: Money And Personalism in the Lusophone World. One of Roger’s important researches has been on the animist religion Candomblé, which we discover more about in our conversation, exploring the subtle borders between the visible and invisible, the material and immaterial.

Presenter:alfonso borragán and Sarah Bayliss
Guests: Roger Sansi
Producer: UCL Arts and Sciences

THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE

In this chapter we talk with the Geologist David Dobson. David is a Professor of Earth Materials at UCL. His research focuses on high-pressure physical property measurements, from sudotakalytes in the Earth's crust to mantle reology and deep earthquakes, as well as the reologys of magma and terrestrial planetary cores. Out of the lab, he enjoys being out in the mountains, unusually migrating north towards the colder climes of Scotland for the winter. We'll discover more about his reasons for this as David explains the formation of body stones as a geological material in the following conversation…

Date of episode recording: 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z
Duration: 34'14''
Language of episode: English
Presenter: alfonso borragán and Sarah Bayliss
Guests: David Dobson
Producer: Arts and Science - University College London

GEOLOGICAL MATERIAL

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