The “Sub Scientist Booth” takes on many forms, at times imitating a street vendor at a nightclub, or a gallery servant; its conceptual basis consists of a scientist constricted with a variety of mediums such as rosary-bead leashes, fence chains, or even clay shackles, all while they extract participants’ DNA substance. Using only household items such as salt and water to mouth-swish cheek cells, the process takes less than five minutes to execute all while the participant observes. The participant takes home a raw sample of extracted DNA substance from the scientist, packaged inside a centrifuge tube, in exchange for their own. On occasion, blood is also given as an exchange. The constriction of the scientist’s body functions as a “submission” to a scientific system and ultimately a “servitude” to community. The scientist becomes a variable within the ritual experiment along with the public.

The DNA extraction process was taken from homemade demonstration videos found online, denoting the process as a “readymade” object within the piece. The extracted DNA that is collected from participants is integrated and stored into ceramic abacuses that function as “life” storages for the substances of the community. The vials are not labeled; some vials contain more than one person’s extracted DNA substance. The centrifuge tubes are never openly exposed and the substances never tested through industrial processes, such as for ancestry, or for medical reasons.

The exchange and receivership of the scientist’s extracted DNA packaged inside a centrifuge tube gives the participant agency over the scientist’s bodily information and the possibilities of how it can move through time. Some participants store it in their home freezer to extend its lifetime, some place it within vanity dressers as memorabilia, some travel with it in their purse, some plan to pass it down through generations, or some conduct their own experiments with it.