I’ve been experimenting with found footage and text for OCA DI&C A5, and I used a book about making end of life decisions published by the BMA. I chose it for now because I had ordered it when thinking about making some work last year around that subject, and had it on my bookshelf. I wanted to include signifier’s relating to death as my work references birth, the life cycle, endism and human ingenuity/intervention/tool making/external structures- but was unsure if I’d use that particular text in the end or not – I wondered, was the subject a distraction? Now, I think it is probably integral.
I am aware that I am exploring how we integrate biology with the tools we produce – the internet for instance and our view of life, how we see, what we see, ect: how we ingeniously make more of who and what we are, or interfere depending on how one looks at it. I am suggesting the exteriorisation we produce ends up becoming part of us – or is part of us, part of the interior/an extension.
I am minded of Andy Clark’s comments on language itself being a technology and Alan Jasonoff’s thoughts from the Biological Mind (2018) when talking about external technology being integrated with our bodies “But my colleague Laura Schultz was thinking out of the box when she answered the questioner with another question: “Did you have a cup of coffee this morning?” What Laura was getting at was, of course, that coffee is a low-tech cognitive enhancement many of us use on a daily basis, and that doesn’t involve anything like the futuristic brain implants or surgical interventions the questioner probably had in mind. Although coffee is not as cool as cyborg gear, it’s much easier to come by and good to the last drop while working on a tough project.” I am also reminded of the way Frtijof and many others I’ve been reading query the Cartesian atomisation of everything. The external tools we make are perhaps not separate from us but part of us.
With the end-of-life-care book, I am looking at human technology enhancing life (the medical profession) which is our compulsion, and then this mirrored or inverted behaviour which is so challenging for many, the withdrawal or withholding of care (which might, in many people’s eyes, be most caring.)
I was further convinced that the inclusion of the book was the right way to go (rather than some other book about death) after reading a comment made on my IG feed beneath an earlier experiment by fellow OCA student Sarah Andrews; “So glad you are using this text. This beautiful imaging is a powerful and good way to share this vitally important decision that we all need to consider” (2018)
Yesterday I edited a clip from the birth film where a doctor uses a metal instrument to ease the baby out – I’ve sped the film up and any shock felt by the vision of the footage is likely to be intensified by the speed. I cannot share this particular clip on Instagram for obvious reasons. However, the following is included beside it in the frame I am not showing here. The clip below contains the word “Picture” and that seems integral – signifiers of a mechanic eye, and also a digital eye as the original footage is downloaded from the internet and only available because of it (which will need to be stated clearly in any statement). What is also weird and wonderful is the way the colour palette for the work has emerged and expressed perfectly in this clip. Shades from green and red – Stop/Go. I am very aware this work is complex and so need to keep simplicity in mind somehow.