| Statement
Bio-medical exploration is a fantasy of objective visibility. To see is to know, and to know is to succeed. However, as there is no such thing as a purely objective gaze—observation is always tied to a host of psychological associations, to see is to concurrently project and consume. Using the sci-fi genre as a license to sublimate my scopophilic (visually indulgent) relationship with the aesthetics of science, I explore how knowledge is produced, documented, and disseminated in favor of assuaging the pain of others within the western health care system.
Through photographs, videos, sculptures, and installations I deal with neurosis, gender and power dynamics in the bio-medical institution. Using archival images, simulated procedures, tableaux, alternative presentation methods, and set-building, I fetishize the surgical theatre, excavating hospital archives, and carrying out experiments.
I am in constant pain from a chronic disease. Through repeated doctors, diagnoses, and procedures I have become well-acquainted with the intimacy and delicacy of a doctor-patient relationship. This autobiographical material is the root of an alter-ego, a caricature of a neurotic, intellectual hero.
The alter-ego is constructed from a series of signifiers, as a Jewish woman, raised with a cultural identity that idealizes intellect to the point of fetishization. This is a stylized performance of a masculine archetype (yes, I am exploring what it means to be a woman through the usage of masculinity and its historical relationship to authority) used in science fiction. Inspired by both speculative fiction (e.g. Mary Shelley’s sublimation of self as the decidedly male Dr. Frankenstein) and the visceral details of medical history, I play with tools until they become toys, and introduce them into installation spaces as props.
This body of work has multiple iterations. Presently: Sex Live of Animals without Backbones, The Prosthetic Practice for the Healing of Imaginary Wounds, A Science of Desirable/Detestable Bodies, and Referred Pain. The last of which I am currently working on. This chapter focuses on the history of the documentation of pain, and courage, through the use of archival photographs of patients from the 20th century that, prior to my introduction into the work, have only been made for, and looked at, by doctors. Additionally, I use scientific imaging techniques (e.g. x-rays, photomicrographs) clinical notes (to be used as scripts with simulated patients,) and fantastical photographs of defunct medications, and tools. Through this, I adopt the role of the epistemophile to explore the aesthetics of a scientific fantasy world of infinite visibility and knowability.
Disability
Mixed Connective Tissue Disease
Fibromyalgia
Spinal Stenosis/Peripheral Neuropathy
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Clinical Depression
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Installation detail from The Infinite Internal Winchester, MA 2018 (L-R) Wallpaper diagrams appropriated from Sex Lives of Animals Without Backbones, and anatomical illustrations from spinal, and eye injury posters, image archival pigment print coated in resin and framed with wood from familial chuppah, shelf with silver gelatin prints mounted and coated in resin from slides from UCSF astronomy dept, mounted polaroid, and pain pill bottles with a dead spider, and moth wings floating in resin, hidden behind far right print is a Wartenberg neuro wheel. Dimensions variable.
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Installation detail from The Infinite Internal Winchester, MA 2018 (L-R) X-Rays printed on Photo-Tex, dissections printed on ceramic tiles, and grouted into resin coated drywall, two shelves with archival imagery from UCSF astronomy dept, various objects including toys and tools, on air sign, video monitor hanging from suture thread. Dimensions variable. |
Installation views The Prosthetic Practice for the Healing of Imaginary Wounds Syracuse, NY 2017 Wallpaper, vinyl tiles, archival pigment prints coated in resin, 2 CRT monitors (one in waiting room, one in exam room,) used doctor's exam table recovered with vinyl, unflattened silver-gelatin print sandwiched in between two pieces of vinyl, over the course of the show it punctured the vinyl. Dimensions variable. |
Installation detail The Infinite Internal, Winchester, MA 2018 L-R Wallpaper on photo tex, access to objects in wallpaper image courtesy of Upstate Medical University Special Collections and Archives, cervical spine designed by the artist, 3d printed and photographed, archival pigment print mounted and coated in resin, framed in wood from familial Chuppah.
Dimensions Variable. |
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Blue Heavens Diptych. Top portrait: archival image from Upstate Medical University Special Collections and Archives, and bottom image, pigment print of Sodium Amytal, early barbiturate used off-label as a truth serum. Access to the object courtesy of Upstate Medical University Special Collections and Archives.
Dimensions variable. |
Love
date unknown Gelatin Silver print, Archival image from Upstate Medical University Special Collections and Archives. Dimensions variable.
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Earthworms have Five Hearts and No Backbone (collage made 2018) Top left portrait archival image of Upstate Medical University Special Collections and Archives, right image silver-gelatin print made by the artist, and bottom image earthworms pre-dissection. Dimensions variable. |
Post-op Diptych 1931 2018 Left portrait archival image from Upstate Medical University Special Collections and Archives, right image made by the artist, access to the microscope courtesy of Upstate Medical University Special Collections and Archives.
Dimensions variable. |
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