Output details

Anarchy in the Organism : Cancer as a Complex System [Computer-generated sound and video installation]

The significance of Anarchy in the Organism (AITO) lies in its questioning of contemporary attitudes to cancer and mortality and its situating of cancer within a normative framework. Is cancer an aberration or is it an embedded aspect of being a complex organism? By situating cancer within a wider context of complex systems from cities, to trees, to societies, this work attempted a reconciliation of cancer as a normal aspect of being in the world. AITO had a significant impact on the patients, carers, oncologists and other collaborators and audiences who came into contact with it. AITO received a £30,000 Wellcome Arts Grant, and was also funded by UCLH Arts who commissioned the work to be shown in the new Macmillan Cancer Centre, London alongside work by leading artists such as Peter Blake and Grayson Perry.

This project extended one of my conceptual interests, complexity theory (CT), an integrative way of looking at disparate phenomena, to underpin the thinking and aesthetics of the artwork. I used CT in an original way to confront the meanings of cancer from a scientific, an ethical and existential perspective for patients, their loved-ones, carers, researchers and those interested in the wider implications of cancer.

The rigour of this project lay in the application of my interest in processes of collaboration, consultation and co-creation with oncologists, a coder, a psychologist, a composer and others. It was a genuinely interdisciplinary project and participants felt that it deepened and challenged their thinking and attitudes to cancer. A challenging aspect was the interaction with cancer patients, who initially found the work difficult. It required rigour and care to be responsible for the impact of my artwork on patients and to confront cancer unflinchingly to create a new way of conceptualising and representing the disease.