Mordentotardia combines performance, sculpture and writing. First performed at David Roberts Foundation, London, then at CCA Glasgow with Maria Fusco to launch the publication of an extract in 2HB. Elements of the project were also exhibited at Grand Union, Birmingham, and ASC Studios, London.

Up until its sixth edition, Carl Linnaeus included in his Systema Naturae the order ‘Animalia Paradoxa’ to describe a group of mythical, magical or suspect creatures that did not fit anywhere else in the animal kingdom. As well as the dragon, hydra, phoenix and unicorn, the list includes plants that bear lambs as fruit (Borometz) and frogs that grow into tadpoles (Rana-Piscis).

To this group of weird animals we add Mordentotardia. Otherwise called the ‘love bite worm’ or ‘slow biter’, Mordentotardia is an O-shaped creature that looks like a puckered mouth or anus. The worm lies in the hadal zone of the ocean where it attaches itself near the mouths of other deep-sea animals. Once affixed, it simultaneously eats and excretes anything and everything that passes through it therefore slowly starving its host. The worm then detaches from the neck of the corpse, inverts and eats itself.

The performance fictionalises Mordentotardia into a melodrama (a term originally used simply to describe any drama accompanied by music; the word his now generally used to describe any sensationalist or exaggerated type of storytelling). Using song, costume and squid ink, the performance tells of a dark love affair between the worm and a whale.

Listen below to a selection of audio.