The fingerprint
Author Identifier (ORCID)
Keywords
fiction, short story, abject, horror
Non-Traditional Research Output
Original Creative Work
Document Type
Non-Traditional Research Output
Date of Publication
2020
Research Statement
Research Background
In 2018 I attended the Symbiotica It’s a Monster Conference to celebrate 200 years since the publication of Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” and was inspired by the visual arts researchers using living tissue culture. Through University of Western Australia, the arts laboratory is at the cutting edge of genetic and visual arts research and is internationally renowned. This story takes inspiration from this by drawing on speculative fiction strategies to tell the story of a grieving mother who seeks to recreate her lost child through her stored stem cells as part of an art project.
Research Contribution
Body horror can be abject and gratuitous and this story seeks to subvert the horror expected when boundaries of self are crossed (Kristeva (1982) “Powers of Horror: An essay on abjection”) and replace it with an expression of maternal grief. Eventually the abject is victorious in the denouement of the story when the altered female body is revealed. The story writes into the canon of feminist body horror (in the tradition of Shelley, Le Guin, Winterson and Carter), extending and projecting this into the 21st Century and exploring the possibilities offered by frontier genetic research and its use by visual artists (Stelarc, Oron Catts of Symbiotica Arts lab).
Research Significance
Kill Your Darlings is a leading Australian arts and culture magazine, established 2010. This collection included 16 stories from over 300 submissions by Australian writers. Sydney bookseller Simon McDonald reviewed it and noted this story as “my favourite; it’s creepy and subversive as it dives into the world of genetic experimentation and its entanglement with art”. “The Fingerprint” acknowledges Varuna, The National Writers House, and was produced during my awarded 2018 Mick Dark Flagship Fellowship for Environmental Writing. Varuna, in Katoomba NSW, is a nationally renowned centre of excellence and provides retreats and support to Australian writers.
Publication Title
New Australian Fiction 2020
Publisher
Kil Your Darlings
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
32961
Links and/or Documentation
https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/shop/new-australian-fiction-2020/
Event Venue
New Australian Fiction 2020
ISBN
9780994483362
Copyright
subscription content
First Page
125
Documentation Statement
This record presents a documented representation of the research output, including the research statement and associated contextual metadata. The creative work itself is not included. Where available, external links are provided to representations of the work.
Content Type
Documentation only
DOI Statement
The DOI refers to the repository metadata record only and serves as a documentation identifier.
Last Page
143
Recommended Citation
Mazza, D. (2020). The fingerprint. In New Australian Fiction 2020. Australia; Kill Your darlings. [Documentation record only]. Research Online. https://doi.org/10.25958/e7d4-x818