Exodermal Architectures

Valmira Gashi

The human body is flawed. While weeding out the unfit and undesirable, evolution also has a funny way of producing biological redundancy and anomalies within the human species. Our eyes are inverted and receive light through a process of unnecessary mirroring. Our wrists have an abundance of bones without function. Our coccyx, a vestigial remnant, is susceptible to breaking on impact. These are among the many glitches in our biology; elements that previously served a purpose but that became defunct and were later locked-in as part of our body’s mainframe. Through a series of analyses on the human glitches we have learned to accept, I came across an unnoticed but critical site, the neck. The neck supports the weight of the head and protects a network of nerves that carry sensory and motor information from the brain down to the rest of the organs and body. At the same time, it is also a defenseless fleshy viaduct that leaves a critical connection vulnerable. Through an exploration of the concept of the trans-human, Bruno Latour’s concept of black-boxing, and Jason Lanier’s concept of lock-in, this project examines the neck as a new architectural territory and seeks to design a series of structural elements that expose it as a site of both vulnerability and desire.

This project seeks to translate the neck’s internal mechanisms of structure, sensory communication and movement into a series of wearables that embody the hidden dimensions of human desire and vulnerability in the human species.