Ciclos 1 is both a prototype for a video installation and a performance that presents multiple perspectives on the concepts of ancestry, heritage and nontraditional family composition. Bringing together narration, sound and video, the work (re)creates stories that merge past, present and future lived experiences. In sometimes complementary, sometimes contrasting ways, Ciclos 1 mixes and melds the worlds of adoption, commercial DIY DNA testing and the ethics of genetic modification.

During his Summer Sessions residency, media artist and consultant Jeisson Drenth focused on creative writing exercises to develop two stories for a future documentary video installation and audiovisual performance. New research into the history of Dutch intercontinental adoption (particularly in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s) combined with his ongoing research into the commodification of biometric data informed this new work. In an effort to give meaning to his own lived experience of displacement and becoming othered, the artist’s work presents learnings from queer theory and decolonial practices. In this way, Ciclos 1 strives to create and hold space particularly for people who identify with queerness and people with a bicultural identity and/or history of migration. In parallel with a text-based research trajectory, Jeisson explores the possibilities and limitations of hardwares, softwares and technical materials for visually expressing his research questions and findings.