Abstract
This article proposes investigating how the problem of chronic and deadly diseases and bodily injuries is explored in selected contemporary artistic projects based on biometric technologies and medical imaging. All of the projects that will be analysed use specific medical tools and methods (e.g., roentgenography or bio-tracking) to provide detailed, affective images of disability and illness. Nonetheless, these projects were created as pieces of art that combine visual and verbal elements: photographs, collages, and other illustrated stories (e.g., “biometric diaries” or open-source art). On the one hand, they show the “inner” and often invisible face of illness and suffering, but on the other hand they also raise questions related to algorithmic reductionism and politicization of such forms of representation of disease. This article will focus on artistic projects created by Diane Covert, Salvatore Iaconesi and Laurie Frick. It refers to the ‘ethos of health’ and the conception of ethopolitics (Nicolas Rose) to show the place in contemporary biopolitical society of illness (Thomas Lemke), which can be seen as an exceptional form of the body’s condition. Moreover, it considers the problem of the politicization of the biological body and affective experiences (Britta Timm Knudsen and Carsten Stage) and the category of untold histories explored by Joanne Garde-Hansen and Kristyn Gorton.
Highlights
This article proposes investigating how the problem of chronic and deadly diseases and bodily injuries is explored in selected contemporary artistic projects based on biometric technologies and medical imaging
Lemke), which can be seen as an exceptional form of the body’s condition. It considers the problem of the politicization of the biological body and affective experiences (Britta Timm Knudsen and Carsten Stage) and the category of untold histories explored by Joanne Garde-Hansen and Keywords: illness; health; affect; biopolitics; body; vitality; biometrics
Referring to the presented conceptualisation of the category of affect, we can consider “the affective” from two perspectives: firstly, as a matter of projects based on biometric data in the biological, intra-body dimension that relate to affective reactions and processes; secondly, as an affective experience induced in the recipient, here especially in relation to photography
Summary
The aim of this article is to investigate the representations of bodily vitality, injuries, disabilities and chronic diseases in several artistic projects that combine art—and photography in particular—and science and are based on biometric systems and bioengineering procedures. Artistic projects based on biometric data reflect on the impact of the development of medicine on human and non-human life; this includes the problem of the institutionalization of medical practices and the medicalization of life, and the redefinition of the socio-cultural designation of disease and health. The artistic implementations of Laurie Frick show how modern biomedical and biometric techniques that are used to monitor individuals can be applied to reveal the problems of chronically ill people and to improve their quality of life All these projects combine creative visualization techniques (especially photography) and verbal elements. This is a crucial topic in contemporary considerations on the relationship between disease and technology
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