Week 6 Proposal

Daily dose interrogates aspects of difference, repetition and routine and the invisibility of chronic illnesses. It will explore the medicalisation of the self-image by comparing the act of drawing and the trace as mark to the medical imaging of the body and the trace that is left behind - from surgeries, x-rays, ultrasounds etc. I intend to make an immersive experiential, self-contained installation that explores experiences related to living with mental and physical chronic illnesses.

Daily dose will invite the audience to enter the altered space and experience my invention of the new normal.  The concept of the ‘new normal’ is something I experience daily. Each day is different. When I wake up my body establishes what ‘normal’ will feel like on that day. For example; some days it is a medicated normal, making my ‘normal’ foggy and lethargic. My ‘Normal’ is constantly evolving. An altered space of the everyday. The new normal is a concept that I want the viewer to physically experience, to have an out-of-body experience. And I want this experience to linger in the viewer’s mind once they leave.

In considering my illnesses as invisible, they are not visible on the outside of the body, I have begun to collect Medical paraphernalia and images as evidence of their existence. Items such as; ultrasounds, medication packaging, pamphlets and brochures. Having tangible objects demonstrates the existence of these diseases to others. I have found it helpful to be branded by the medical industry in this way when explaining these diseases to friends, families and doctors.

Petherbridge talks about the action of drawing and the trace as mark and the image left behind. I find that this parallels the medical imaging of the self and the trace that is left behind in clinics, surgeries, and scans. This also interrogates notions of visibility and questions whether there is any trace of the original left behind.

I have also begun to collect texts of things that have been said to me, and other people with invisible illnesses. I, and I have found the same to be true for others, I usually receive uneducated responses when I talk to people about my illnesses. This is why awareness and understanding is one of my main goals in this project. I began to experiment with text and medical paraphernalia in last year’s work and I would like to continue to experiment with these materials.  

Ellie Kammer is an Australian artist that explicitly deals with a chronic illness that I have, endometriosis.  She raises awareness and promotes understanding for this disease by depicting her experience of living with endometriosis, one of my goals. She creates intimate oil paintings, allowing the viewer to experience it for themselves, to imagine what it feels like. Kammer’s paintings depict the invisible part of the disease on the outside of the female body, making it visible. In some of my experiments, I am attempting to create something similar, but in a different medium.

In some more experiments, attempted to scan the ultrasound images into the computer, but ran into issues as they are indistinguishable when scanned. You need a light source behind them to be able see them. So, using a lightbox, I have started to draw over ultrasound images with lead pencil onto tracing paper. I believe there is more to explore here – perhaps tracing over them again with other types of paper, and drawing materials. I have also taken these drawings and begun to alter them in photoshop.

I have now begun to experiment with self-portraiture and viewing it through the lens of the ‘new normal’. How different daily experiences, and different mediums of viewing the human body – medical imagery and photographs - can be merged together. How different realities exist together, the one you see one the outside and the reality of what is happening on the inside. This is something that Jenny Saville explores in her drawings. Saville is mainly known for her monumental oil paintings in which she does not depict idealised bodies, but her drawings are also captivated by the materiality of the human body. On her drawings, she says:

“Just because of the transparency of drawing, you’ve got the possibility of multiple bodies. It’s an attempt to make multiple realities exist together rather than one sealed image.” – Jenny Saville.

By using drawing as a window or lens - as described by Davis on page 108 of Drawing – the Process -  I will interrogate the medicalisation of the self-image through blending, merging and distorting collected data. I will continue to create digital self-portraits, filtering and overlapping photographs until you can no longer clearly see the original image.

These experiments are a mixture of photographs taken during a bad flare up, and photographs taken on a good day and uploaded to social media, showing the “perfect” outside image of ourselves. It is everyone, and no one at the same time.  I then combined ultrasounds, and drawings of ultrasounds, in these portraits to explore the inside of the body in ways that cannot be seen from the outside.

With these experiments, I plan to expand on them and use them in secondary works; in combination with video installation, animation and projection. Nicolas’ Mole’s installation work, They Look At You is an example of the immersive installation that I would like to experiment with in my work. In They Look At You, you have to physically crawl into the workspace, remove your shoes, and sit there and experience the work before you. It is a fully immersive experience. My proposed installation will be in a small, constrained space surrounding the viewer, with the possibility of using headphones, to isolate and surround the viewer further. An important aspect of this installation is that the viewer has the option to leave at any time. They are not confined to this experience, unlike people with chronic illnesses.

One other experiment I wanted to share quickly is this storyboard. This was another continuation on last year’s works – the flip book/animation about medication. Documenting my daily routine through alarms and medication trackers on my phone, and I feel it was a failed attempt, that my work is heading in another direction.