known as Heebi
based in Rotterdam, NL
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CV
Information
known as Heebi
based in Rotterdam, NL
Projects
Drawings
Writings
CV
Information
Becoming a Watery Body
I. The Uncontrollable Death
II. The Uncontrollable Flow
III. The Uncontrollable Becoming
IV. The Uncontrollable Connection
— Bibliography / List of Figures
IV. The Uncontrollable Connection
FIG 7. Part of FIG.2
However, the becoming that appears in my drawings differs from the process of pregnancy and childbirth. The image of a female body carrying a foetus in the womb and giving birth to a child of the same species does not appear. Instead, various forms of existence, such as human bodies, flesh, monsters, insects, trees, and fish, are shown connecting with one another in multiple ways, transforming, and affecting each other.
Thinking through this, this chapter extends gestation and birth beyond biological reproduction. If the generation of life existed only within the capacity for “natural” reproduction, then certain bodies would be rendered incapable of generating life. Yet the vitality of the body that I experienced cannot be explained in this way. The aliveness of the body cannot be reduced simply to the biological capacity for reproduction. In FIG.7, the urine released from the body on the right flows and gathers into a spring, from which another form of body begins to grow. Moreover, this pool of urine becomes nourishment for plants that are entirely different from the body that produced it. This goes beyond reproduction, which is understood as the replication of the same species or individual. It opens the imagination to broader connections with other species.
1) New Forms of Gestation
Sophie Lewis describes the body as always leaky, parasited, and nonunitary. Lewis draws attention to the diverse microorganisms and bacteria present within bodily fluids.²⁹ The body already hosts multiple other forms of life. This perspective leads to the concept of symbiogenesis.³⁰ Symbiogenesis offers an evolutionary account in which new life does not emerge independently but is formed through long-term coexistence and integration between different beings. As Lynn Margulis argues, the symbiosis of bacteria gave rise to complex cells, and it led to the emergence of complex organisms. This suggests that the body is not originally a singular entity, but is constituted through multispecies coexistence.³¹
From this perspective, the body can already be understood as “gestating” multiple forms of life, even without the process of gestating a foetus. For instance, when bacteria enter from the outside and coexist within the gut over time, they form a new ecosystem, the gut microbiome, which becomes an integral part of bodily functions such as digestion and immunity. Water, in particular, operates as a medium that enables this coexistence. When I drink water, it becomes part of my bodily fluids. And it is later expelled, flowing into the environments of other beings. In this process, water carries microorganisms and bacteria, connecting different bodies. Within this flow, the water I take in becomes part of what constitutes me, while the water I release contributes to the constitution of other beings.
Neimanis explains gestationality in relation to the flow of water.³² The water I drink has already passed through other bodies. And the microorganisms, bacteria, and organic particles in it become part of my body. Conversely, the water I release flows into the environments of other beings and becomes part of their bodies. Within this cycle, beings do not remain as entities separated from one another, but become conditions for each other’s formation.³³ As Neimanis writes, “we may be gestational as lover, as neighbour, as accidental stranger.”³⁴ In this sense, gestation is not confined to the human womb, but can be extended to the ways bodies pass through one another and form relations through water.
This form of connection can be further extended through Donna Haraway’s concept of “making kin.” Haraway proposes the kinship that emerges through the entanglement of bodies across different species, instead of the human-centred notion of blood relation.³⁵ This resonates with the scene in FIG.7, where bodily fluids flowing from a body form a spring from which another species begins to grow. This is not a reproduction of the same species, but the formation of multispecies relationships mediated through material processes.
A new form of gestation, therefore, is no longer limited to the human womb. The processes through which different beings connect and constitute one another through water can also be understood as forms of gestation. We are already living within such fluid relations, and the body exists as a site that continuously hosts, transmits, and generates new connections with other forms of life.
2) The Subtle Solace
FIG 8. Part of FIG.1
Returning to the drawing, a human and a dog appear within the same frame, the same scene. But they do not share an immediate or direct connection. The dog does not emerge from the same body as the human, nor are they physically intertwined. It simply remains beside the figure, witnessing their death. And yet, they are still together, within the same space, within the same water, beneath the same layer of the current.
This recalls the earlier idea that human and non-human beings are connected through water. Though this connection is not directly visible. It moves through multiple stages and mediations, yet it is never entirely severed. The human and the dog may appear as separate species, distinct from one another, but they ultimately share the same flow, situated within the same field.
Such a relation resembles the web-like structure that Donna Haraway describes. On a loosely yet densely woven web, beings may not touch directly, yet remain connected through countless mediations. Beings appear to be distant from one another, yet are entangled with each other through invisible threads.³⁶
Within this, I feel a subtle sense of solace. Amid the overwhelming flow of watery vitality, a force of life that easily dissolves and engulfs the subject, the presence of other species, existing alongside me in their own ways, becomes quiet comfort. No one rescues me, yet I am not entirely disconnected. The sense that we exist together within the same flow makes me feel less alone.
V. Conclusion
FIG 9. A part of FIG 1.
Beneath the hand of the figure, drawn in rough oil pastel textures and vivid colours, another hand which is
drawn with thin black-and-white pen lines overlaps below it. The contact between the two hands is
very slight. They are not even tightly clasped. Yet even this fragile touch suggests that the figure sinking
in the water is not entirely alone.
This thesis has traced the materiality of the body in order to think about a vitality that exceeds the subject. It is a living material that cannot be fixed into form, cannot be fully controlled, and remains in constant flow and transformation. I call this watery vitality.
Watery vitality disrupts boundaries. It dissolves the distinction between the inside and outside of the body, while also connecting what seems divided. It binds life and death, attraction and repulsion, beauty and fear. Just as water is both the condition that sustained my life and the force that could drown me, watery vitality is always accompanied by ambivalence. It is beautiful and ecstatic, yet also frightening and overwhelming. In this process, the self no longer remains a fixed centre. It is continuously transformed through contact with others and placed within a flow that exceeds itself. The subject becomes unsettled, fractured, and unable to fully govern the body.
And yet this force is not purely despairing. At the point where the subject dissolves, a connection that is not entirely severed can still be felt. I am separated from my mom, yet I remain within the same flow of bodily fluids as her. I exist as an individual distinct from others, yet I am also connected to them through fluidity. Watery vitality, therefore, is not a force confined to a single body, but a force of becoming and relation that continues through transformation. This thesis has sought to reveal it not as an abstract ontological concept, but as a material phenomenon that is lived and sensed through the body.
What remains is neither certainty nor salvation, but a subtle solace: the feeling of not being completely isolated, the sense of being situated within the same flow. It is never enough, yet it persists. With this, the overwhelming flow of life that surges like water becomes, perhaps, a little less frightening.
29 Lewis, Full Surrogacy Now, 177.
30 Ibid.
31 Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet, trans. Han-eum Lee (Seoul: Science Books, 2007), originally published 1998, 23.
32 Neimanis, Bodies of Water, 86.
33 Ibid., 102.
34 Ibid., 69.
35 Haraway, Staying with the Trouble, 103.
36 Haraway, Staying with the Trouble, 11-13.