———- Forwarded message ———
From: Adam Zaretsky <va888hool@888il.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 8:00 AM
Subject: 4 heads of ACE2 Mice on a Silver Platter
To: ____
Hello ____
I am writing to request 4 heads of ACE2 Mice for one of my final i3S bioart exhibitions. The heads could be decontaminated and freeze-dried in the basement for exhibition in double containment or triple containment. The intention would be to show the 4 heads on a small silver platter. This is an art piece that references COVID-19 and the public suspicion that the original virus was a Gain of Function Bioweapon or Bioengineered mistake that led to intentional or mistaken release. This is not something I believe, but it is a running theory with lots of documentation to support the lab leak theory as potentially probable. See: https://theintercept.com/collections/origins-of-covid/
The symbolism of the 4 heads of ACE2 humanized mice in the context of furin proteins references comes from John the Revelator (sometimes known as John the Apostle, John the Elder, John of Patmos, John the Baptist Returns II) A famed paranoiac, John’s decapitated head on a silver platter was given to Salome in exchange for incest with King Herod her patricidal uncle who was married to her mother. So the ACE2 decapitated heads on a silver platter reference both John the Revalator’s decapitation and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In this case the 4 mousemen (literally human-mouse chimeras or mousemen hybrids) of the pandemicalypse.
Actually Apocalypse and Revelation are synonymous, see the Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokalupsis: unveiling, uncovering, revealing, revelation, a laying bare, making naked .
Perhaps we can also display seven vials of live covid in a high security, quadruple contained, cryo-storage Dewar flask? Can we see the dance of the seven veils in comparison to the seven seals as a comparison of absolute vacuum as of alchemical virginity mysticism of aseptic spaces and Pandora’s box as the broken seals of apocalyptic contagion?
More on paranoia about the Vaccines as the breaking of the seven seals at NCBI: Dein S. Covid-19 and the Apocalypse: Religious and Secular Perspectives. J Relig Health. 2021;60(1):5-15. doi:10.1007/s10943-020-01100-w
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598223/
The above version of this semi-literary history is based on the decadent play Salome’s Last Dance written by Oscar Wilde and Illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley and the campy baroque cinema of a play within a play version made for the silver screen by Ken Russell (full film linked below, for public research purposes only.) Please keep in mind that this is a nuanced and very gay cultural way of couching this, not as shock art, but as kitsch.
I write this email to ask formally if I can have 4 freeze dried recycled heads of ACE2 mice for display on a silver platter for our exhibition? I know the ACE2 research at i3S involves live COVID19 and future pandemic therapies (some of which are proprietary) but I wonder if the heads can be both decontaminated and contained suitably to not be a biohazard? If the display of four ACE2 mousemen heads on a silver platter is not possible, please describe why.
Additionally, I ask if we can have seven eppendorf tubes of diluted and incapacitated (dead?) samples of COVID19 for display as the seven unbroken seals, signaling that the apocalypse is not nigh. If the display of live or dead or undead COVID is not possible, please describe why.
Thank you for your patience and candor,
Dr. Adam Zaretsky, Bioartist
More about Salome’s Last Dance: Directed by Ken Russell
“This is a play-within-the-film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s decadent play, which calls to mind similar approaches to the theatre that are associated primarily with the baroque stage of the seventeenth century (play-within-the-play, mise-en-abîme). … The plot of the play is well known. The young princess Salome becomes enamoured of the imprisoned John the Baptist, who repudiates her. Herod in turn lusts after Salome. This makes him a very wicked tetrarch, for Salome is actually the daughter of his brother and Herodias. Herod had his brother killed so that he could have Herodias to himself. Now he wants the daughter, too. In a drunken moment he promises Salome anything she wants if she will only dance for him. Unluckily, she demands John the Baptist’s head on a silver charger (sic. platter). There is no changing her mind and before he knows it Herod has killed a prophet so that a slinky vixen may kiss his decapitated head. Repulsed, Herod has Salome killed and the curtain falls.”
-Eecke, Christophe Van. “Moonstruck Follies: Ken Russell’s ‘Salome’s Last Dance’ (1988) as Baroque Performance.” Image and Narrative, 2012.
Inspirational clip from the film: see above
And the email response I received:
———- Forwarded message ———
From: ____
Date: Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 11:24 PM
Subject: Re: 4 heads of ACE2 Mice on a Silver Platter
To: Adam Zaretsky <vast888ol@g888il.com>
Cc: ____
Dear Adam,
animals used for experiments with Sars-Cov-2 are inside the ABSL-3 area and, samples collected from these animals, are either being used after the in vivo experiments for different purposes or autoclaved and then sent for incineration. For safety reasons I can not provide you with samples with ABSL-3 origin as our protocols require that, once autoclave inactivation is done, all the materials are submitted to incineration too.
Regarding the vials/eppendorfs, it’s also not possible to give you for the same reasons, these are decontaminated by autoclave and then incinerated. All the Sars-Cov-2 vials with the different variants are maintained inside the ABSL-3 and it wouldn’t be safe to allow the manipulation of such samples outside the ABSL-3 area, even after decontamination as it would require a culture to confirm the samples were in fact non infectious and that the decontamination process was efficient.
Regards
____
