In traditional Chinese medicine, Yi Xing Bu Xing, means eating an animal organ to nourish the corresponding human organ. In this workshop you will be guided into making your own (vegan) aphrodisiac. When it comes to masculinity and sexuality, eating a tiger penis is believed to enhance one's sexuality. This leads to a huge demand for animal parts from an endangered species. During this participatory Performance, Kuang-Yi Ku introduces his future clinic of Chinese Medicine in which no animals are harmed.
Upon entering the Future Clinic of Chinese Medicine, you will be diagnosed through a set of tests and questions. Following, you will receive a personalised set of herbs and and be guided into making your own hybrid aphrodisiac. Every medicine is aimed to fit your body while keeping in mind environmental and social problems. Once we tasted and tested different medicines together, the cultural meaning of food is discussed. To sum up, Kuang Yi Ku talks about conflicting values between Chinese medical Culture and Western Environmentalism and shares his methodology of hybridizing medicine.
Tiger Penis Project
Different cultures have different approaches to medicine, whose effects cannot always be measured by contemporary western scientific research. Western medicine often deems certain old practices as cultural myths. One of these is the belief that a Tiger Penis enhances male virility. Apart from it being a not proved fact by hard-science, the huge demand of wild animal parts results in increasing endangered animals. This results in a conflict between traditional values and western environmentalism. By hybridizing Chinese Medicine, and combining it with methodology of Synthetic Biology, Kuang Yi Ku set out to bridge this gap. Tiger Penis Project is a graduation project from social design department of Design Academy Eindhoven.
Kuang-Yi Ku was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, and is currently based in Eindhoven. His work often deals with human body, sexuality, human-animal interaction and medical technology, aiming to investigate the relationships among technology, individual and environment. He co-founded TWbioArt in Taiwasn and won the 1st prize of Taipei Digital Art awards in 2015 with The Fellatio Modification Project. Via bodily transformations, this project aimed to enhance sensory pleasure during oral sex amongst gay men by practice of dental medicine.
