Output details

Blood Run

This video work was first presented Fremantle Arts Centre, Australia 19 May-15 July 2012 as a result of a double residency at SymbioticA (a bio-artistic research institute at the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia) and Fremantle Arts Centre. The overall project and exhibition was called PROJEKTET and was a collaborative project with Amanda Newall, Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden. The work has also been presented alongside associated talks / workshops at other venues (see portfolio).

The video work Blood Run is based on a number of workshops led by Johansson and involved acting students from three higher education institutions in the Perth metropolitan area. Johansson intensified his previous research on applied performance and HIV/AIDS (cf. the REF output Community Theatre and AIDS) by informing the video work with immunological interpretations, typified by having the artists’ own blood recorded under microscope and integrated in the video work.

Furthermore, Johansson co-authored and directed of the video work with Newall, who did the camera work as well as the costumes which were designed to typify the metaphorical rationale of the project – namely to juxtapose the postcolonial political ethnic divisions of Western Australia with the way the immune system functions when confronted with unfamiliar antigens (bacteria, viruses, parasites). The latter immune systemic confrontations are usually enacted with lethal force but may also execute accommodating strategies if the strangers are unfamiliar but benign.