Mpasturavacche is the dialectal name in Apuglia, Italy, of the common four-lined snake, which was believed to suckle a cow’s milk while entwined around its legs. The artwork Mpasturavacche. The milk-suckling snake is a one-to-one Art and Science performance that lets participants explore the perceptive abilities of snakes through wearable technologies. By disclosing the instincts and impulses of the lizard brain in the human animal, the artwork makes sense of and alleviates humans’ estrangement from nature.

During the performance, the artist/performer and the participant/co-performer are linked by an “umbilical cord” that acts as a communication channel between the two. The participant receives a VR headset with thermal vision, an Arduino board and a highly sensitive voice sensor mounted close to the mouth. The device is connected to the artist, where a wearable technology system ‒ made of micro motors mounted on a piece of isothermal textile ‒ pulses in time with the visitor’s breath. These interfaces mimic the sensory properties of snakes, such as thermal vision and the responsiveness of the snake’s skin to vibrations.

The performance explores the ancestral communication systems of reptiles (snakes) and their impact on human perception and behaviour. The intimate setting of the performance awakens and challenges the sensory nature of the communication and signification in the human [and more-than-human] animal. (Source: author)