PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Open Body offers viewers a physical space to experience and
encounter multiple perspectives on the medicalized body.
Open Body is a parody of a children’s game where the player
pretends to be a surgeon.
In the parody, the participant plays the role of both patient and doctor
in operating on a body that mirrors the participant’s face in
real time (via feed from a hidden spy camera hidden in the belly of
the body). Players use forceps to pull words and phrases hidden in body
cavities. Touching the body’s edge triggers mechanical sounds
that sound as if they might belong to the operating room—closer
listening reveals the noises to be domestic in origin: electric shavers,
garbage disposals, and hair dryers.
Bound with suturing needles the words belong to actual patients who
undergo surgery and wish to create a dialogue about their experience
online. All of the phrases originally appeared on personal web sites,
blogs and chat rooms. While the content varies, the focus is to examine
how different individuals respond to the experience of consciously releasing
control or agency over their bodies. All words collected from body cavities
are repositioned on the doctor's coat that hangs next to the game.
Description of collaboration: Sara Levine provided concept
development and all written texts that appear in the game. Holmes directed
the project’s conceptual development and fabrication of the installation
and associated
electronics.
Sara Levine is an Assistant Professor of Writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.