The Remains of Disembodied Cuisine
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2004
Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr

The Remains of Disembodied Cuisine literally presents the remains and relics from Disembodied Cuisine, a performance in which participants ate semi-living steaks—small ‘steaks’ created using tissue engineered techniques. During the initial performance some participants spat out the semi-living steaks, so they were presented as preserved remains on a dining table along with a three-channel video installation that documented the project from the lab and farm through the exhibition to the final dinner.

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The Semi-Living Steak project is the outcome of a residency at the Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Laboratory at Harvard Medical School in 2000. The first steak was grown from pre-natal sheep cells (skeletal muscle), harvested as part of research into tissue engineering techniques in utero. The steak was grown from an animal that was not yet born.