Exquisite, 1999
In a time when genetic engineering and the sexual behavior of public figures dominate public discussion, the body continues to be a contested site in Western culture. As the technological demands of medical science increasingly dominate the public sphere, traditional roles of religion and community as arbiters of social and moral choice in contemporary society have been supplanted. At the same time, the Cartesian privileging of mind over body and the intellect over lived experience has led to the primacy of scientific methodology and a consequent discounting of sensory experience and the voice of desire as sources of knowledge. Exquisite uses a composite of medical images and interlacing texts to describe a search for clarity in the intricacies of physical and emotional experience and the reconciliation of those experiences with the analytical descriptions of science and medicine. The accordion format and composite figure are reminiscent of ‘exquisite corpse’ drawings, where each participant draws a section of the body without looking at others’ drawings. This format both refers to this game popular with the Surrealists, and reflects on medicine’s fragmented and mechanistic view of the body.
Two-color offset lithography,concertina binding with cloth hard covers, 10 pages.