The bio-art project Sex Shells: Gender fluidity in the Modern Age (2019), a collaboration between designer Jonathan Ho and ecological scientist Joris Koene, is the winner of the 2019 BAD Art & Design Awards in the Netherlands. One of the winning works of the Design Award. In the aquarium in the center of the exhibition hall, there are several live snails inlaid with rhinestones and colorful paintings, and under the aquarium is a home carpet with snail-shaped patterns. Black and white grayscale projections surrounding the walls on three sides, slow motion playback of the sensual twisting of snails during intercourse, followed by snail-shaped leather lovers stroking each other. Ho's design has long focused on fetish aesthetics and the sex industry. This work combines the snail's transsexual mating and the intimate practice of the fetish community, and may also interweave the erotic boundaries between humans and snails. According to the winning presentation,
this work uses the hermaphrodite freshwater snail as a "metaphor" of gender fluidity, in order to explore the multiple possibilities of contemporary human gender. metaphor? Bio-art is an emerging cross-disciplinary artistic creation in the 21st century. However, using creatures as a metaphor for human society is actually a very ancient practice, which can be traced back to the animal murals in ancient caves. What troubles me is not how old the practice is, but the Pricing fact that the interaction between humans and creatures is not further developed in the work. Indeed, hermaphroditic snails can be compared to the gender framework in modern human society, but the installation of Sex Shell seems to imply another asymmetric relationship: human and animal. Philosopher John Berger in "Why Look at Animals? 〉 (Why Look at Animals?) wrote that since ancient times,
animals have not only been metaphors in human language, but also interacting actors. People look at animals, and animals look back at people. Animals are eaten and worshipped, forming a subtle mutual relationship with each other. With the development of capital industry, the gaze of animals gradually dissipated, replaced by images of animals, dolls, Disney cartoons, pets, and zoos. Zoos, in particular, allow people to see nature, but instead prove the absence of animals in human society. Animals in the fence lose their survival behavior in nature. Foraging and courtship are controlled by breeders, but they are regarded as rare symbols of nature. Animals are no longer active and are only for human viewing [1]. Sex Shell's costumed snail in an aquarium is, u