UNBORN0x9 - Unborn0x9

UNBORN0x9 is an art installation and performance questioning the development of foetuses in artificial wombs outside of the body (ectogenesis) and the cyborg future of parenting. It explores the role of obstetric science in the increasingly technological experience of human reproduction, speculating on new types of bonding that may emerge with artificial wombs. Here, pregnancy is integrated into a high-tech vision of the body as a biological component of a cybernetic communication system.

In collaboration with the echOpen fablab who engages in the development of open source and low cost echo-stethoscope with smartphone application, UNBORN0X9 forks the prototype of a creative tool and hacks the inaudible ultrasonic waves in a sonic conversion that allows the interpretation of an audiovisual and ultrasonic emotional score by performers and musicians.

UNBORN0X9 is a project by Future Baby Production collective.

Future Baby Production

An initiative by Shu Lea Cheang and Ewen Chardronnet

An Antre-Peaux/UrsuLaB & ART2M/Makery production

Technical team: Thomas Demmer & Quentin Perchais (Qastor), Benjamin Cadon (Labomedia), Jérôme Dubois (echOpen), Vivien Roussel (thr34d5), Svar Simpson

UNBORN0x9 has received the support of the CNC-DICRéAM (2017-2020) and the ART4MED program, co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union (2021-2022).

Future Baby Production is an initiative by Shu Lea Cheang and Ewen Chardronnet. In 2016 the echOpen fablab of Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris, an open and collaborative project and community fablab with the aim of designing a functional low-cost and open source echo-stethoscope (portable ultrasound device), invited the two artists/authors to collaborate and contribute to the community project through artistic practice and skills. This opportunity led to the UNBORN0x9 project. Soon a large team of interested artists and cultural facilitators joined the initiative and started working on the various dimensions of the hacking performance project. The Future Baby Production collective name represents the common group effort to raise issues such as the possible impact of low cost echo-stethoscopy on Global Health issues, questions of access to healthcare and motherhood, ectogenesis and the technicization of reproduction, and the back-and-forth between science-fiction imaginary and science in the making at large.