The cellular memory hypothesis states that memories are stored not only in the brain but in every single cell of the body. What kind of information is stored at the cellular level and how does this memory live on when human and non-human cells merge as a result of various biotechnological or medical processes (e.g. pig heart transplants)? What does the body of a jellyfish, whose cells have the ability to reverse the life cycle, remember?

Paula Malinowska’s animated film is a fictional and virtual re-construction of a memory from the dead body of a jellyfish. Inspired by the ability of cellular transdifferentiation (a process in which a mature somatic cell transforms into a new type of mature somatic cell) of a jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii), which is capable of reverse metamorphosis, the CGI-animated film challenges the notions of (im)mortality and speculatively explores the existence of planetary memory. In the hybrid consciousness of humans and jellyfish, the finitude of the individual body means one morphing into the other. 

The ability of bodies to morph into each other, the extensive interconnectedness of tissues and cells and the concept of cellular memory challenge the linear and limited approaches concerned with different geographical times, memory and other ways in which information is preserved over time from a human perspective.

(Borbála Szalai)