Fluorescent Self

Fluorescent Self (2024-ongoing)
Transmutation, the essence of alchemy, encompasses chemical and physiological transformations such as healing, reversing aging, or transcending earthly existence. The performative technoetic arts experiment The Fluorescent-Self (2024) investigates the environmental and biological impacts of the necrobiome—postmortem microbial and biochemical legacies that alter the chemistry and microbiomes of soil and plants. These molecular-level changes, seen as “memories of the self,” can be tracked using simple Arduino-based fluorometers and AI by analyzing chlorophyll fluorescence dissolved in diethyl ether or through spectral fluorescence at the leaf level. From a ‘molmediatic’ perspective, the project reflects on the potential implications of necrobiome transmutation. Just as organ transplantation has been observed to cause permanent behavioral changes—raising ethical concerns about xenotransplantation involving pig-human hybrids—the molecular-level information from a decomposing animal’s necrobiome could hypothetically lead to a form of “chimerized consciousness,” merging the essences of animals and plants. This thought-provoking exploration bridges biochemistry, ecology, and speculative aesthetics, pushing the boundaries of how we perceive interconnectedness and transformation across life forms.

Talk:

Necrobiological Entanglements: Earthly Remains as a Living Medium

This talk explores ecological mourning through necrobiological entanglements—the living microbial, fungal, and biochemical assemblages that emerge through decomposition and regeneration. Extending and connecting ‘The Fluorescent-Self’ (2024–ongoing) and ‘We Bring Back Your Microbiome’ (2023–ongoing), two performative technoetic art experiments, while reflecting on outcomes from the Cultivamos Cultura Learning Lab 2026 workshop ‘Fluorescent Graveyards,’ Clarissa Ribeiro examines how postmortem transformations reshape soils, plants, fungi, and ecological networks, redistributing matter, energy, and information across living systems. Bridging bioart, biochemistry, ecology, and molmediatic aesthetics, the talk proposes decomposition as a process of transmutation rather than disappearance, continuity rather than absence. By reframing earthly remains as a living medium, it invites reflection on ecological afterlives, material memory, and the emergence of new forms of life through loss, regeneration, and transformation. In this perspective, death becomes not an endpoint but a condition for ecological becoming, where mourning and renewal remain inseparably intertwined. CC Learning Lab 2026

Wrokshop: 

Fluorescent Graveyards: Necrobiological Entanglements

Fluorescent Graveyards: Necrobiological Entanglements extends The Fluorescent-Self (2024–ongoing), a performative technoetics experiment exploring ecological afterlives through decomposition and regeneration. Developed for the Cultivamos Cultura Learning Lab 2026 theme Waste as Living Medium, the workshop investigates ecological mourning through the necrobiome—the microbial, fungal, and biochemical communities emerging through decomposition. Participants will collect leaves and environmental samples, conduct chlorophyll fluorescence analysis using Arduino-based fluorometers, and create temporary gravestones marking collection sites. Combining bioart, ecology, biochemistry, and speculative aesthetics, the workshop reframes decomposition as transmutation, continuity, and ecological becoming. CC Learning Lab 2026