Transcendence uses the artist’s tears and holy water to emulate the weight of a soul. The weight of a soul is 21 grams according to physician Duncan MacDougall who experimented with the weight of bodies after their death. The findings of this experiment are rather controversial, each time this experiment was conducted MacDougall took into account detailed factors including the amount of air in lungs, loss of perspiration and consistently was able to account for a mass loss of 21 grams after the death of his patients. For Ursula Kuiper it is not so important whether this study is true but the fact that it feeds into a bigger picture of a shedding of the corporeal self. And, facilitating this thought process, the physical signifier of holy water and tears can stand in for a soul and the fragility of human life.