THE OSSIFICATORIUM

2013-2014

The Ossificatorium was both a Level 1 biosafety research-creation laboratory based in Montréal, Québec, and a multiphase biological and social research project developed by a team of seven Canadian academic and independent researchers across the life sciences, arts and humanities, applied mathematics, digital microscopy, and electronics/IT.

The project engages forensic aesthetics and osteobiographical narrative construction—the visual, structural, and textual articulation of bone as a record of historical events alongside an expanded understanding of biology as a form of “new media.” A complementary line of inquiry examines the mapping of myth and culture through psychogeographies—affective spaces that include both body and landscape—and extends into cyber-psychogeography through online tracking and mapping systems. Within this framework, The Ossificatorium proposes an expanded model of the body as distributed across biological, technological, and narrative systems, with speculative implications for future applications such as digitally mediated aesthetic or therapeutic osteogenesis. Objects are encountered as biomimetic artifacts, exhibited in galleries, dispersed in public space, and tracked online—each accompanied by an elaborately constructed osteobiographical narrative. These texts function as speculative accounts, assigning histories, movements, and conditions of emergence to each object, and situating them within a parallel system of knowledge.

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The project unfolded across multiple phases:

Phase I | A biomimetic material inquiry through manipulation of tissue within a Level 1 biosafety laboratory, exploring the structural integrity and feasibility of textile-based methods in laboratory-engineered osteogenesis—such as the conceptual “weaving” of intracellular matrices. Historical and mythological frameworks, including extraordinary embodied figures, were used to examine relationships between microbiology, geography, and culture.

Phase II | Mathematical modeling, rendering, and construction of polyhedral forms referencing geometric structures found in chemical and mineral systems. These forms, constructed of laser etched sheet acrylic l, function as both symbolic constructs and hermetically sealed reliquary/ incubator containers for specimens.

Phase III | Metacultural analysis through GPS tracking and web-based applications. Representational objects were dispersed and tracked across physical and digital terrains, generating data that contributes to a psychogeographical mapping of movement, narrative, and cultural formation. 

Elaborate narratives for each object can be found here: https://ossificatorium.wordpress.com/