Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
De Montfort University
Demonstration 50.15 - a 16mm colour stereo 9 mins observational film
Demonstration 50.15 (16mm colour stereo 9 mins 2009) is an observational film made by artist Anna Lucas during a Wellcome Trust Fellowship at the Dept.of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG) and Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing, Oxford University. Additional funding from Arts Council England.
How can the material and spatial qualities of 16mm film, non-synchronised digetic sound and the constraints of censorship in lens-based representation of cadavers (imposed by the Human Tissue Authority), create a phenomenological interrogation of the dissection space, re-enforcing the absence of human life?
The research included Lucas convening an interdisciplinary conference Land of Silence and Darkness with presentations by artists, academics, scientists and film-makers at Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford University and Museum of Natural History, Oxford. This supported conceptual underpinning and rigour of Demonstration 50.15.
The film reveals activity within the lab as it follows the repetitive daily activities of the mortuary technician, denying standard views of anatomical detail and subverting hierarchical portrayals of scientists' practise.
It is significant in its interrogation of artists presence in contemporary and historical representations of anatomy laboratories eg: Rembrandts, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, exhibition Spectacular Bodies, Hayward Gallery, publication Anatomy for the Artist by Dr Sarah Simblet (DPAG) experimental film The Act of Seeing with Ones Own Eyes, Stan Brakhage (USA) with which it was screened by LUX at Whitechapel Art Gallery with Q&A by Wellcome Director Ken Arnold.
First shown at Ovada Gallery, Oxford, selected for Kassell Documentary Film Festival, Germany and UK tour through S1 Gallery, Sheffield. New understandings have been generated through panel presentations at conferences: Powers of the False convened by Dr Steven Eastwood, Institut Francais; Manipulate me, Documentary Now, University College London. Essays and citations also include Dr Silke Panse, Blind Movies, Melissa Gronlund editor Afterall Magazine, for LUX online.
