Bio Hacked Mutant Assholes (with Otto Byström) (2017)

A one-off performance with cartoonish aesthetics, Bio Hacked Mutant Assholes wasn’t the only unhinged collaboration with Finnish artist Otto Byström, but certainly my favourite. The idea came from trying to imagine what toxic masculinity would look like in some undefined future dystopia where the codes of virility had radically been transformed. The performance included shredding on a toxic green guitar, painting the image of a centaur with a huge cock and sensually passing rubber bullets into each others mouths. Being able to embody a nightmare in public with one of my best friends was intensely freeing.

Bio Hacked Mutant Assholes was part of the now defunct Sorbus gallery’s Veranda festival, where the front window of the exhibition space was removed (and damaged) to turn the gallery into a public stage. Dozens of different shows were presented, including performance art, music shows, poetry readings and more. Bellow is the full documentation of the performance as well as the description by Sorbus:

'Duo-performance about biohacking, art and xxxxxxx by Andrée Chapatte and Otto Byström. Emotionless cyborgs are cool for these dudes.'

“Veranda event transformed Sorbus gallery into an open air venue between 8.–18.6.2017. The event started with the removal of the big window glass that separates the gallery from the street. In this way, the space was turned into a stage. The program was spread over two weeks and had no entrance fees or age limits. The event blended together different kinds of performances and concerts in order to create unexpected connections between the performers, the audience, and different art forms.”