EVACUATING DOWNWARDS
— OR IN ANY OTHER NECESSARY DIRECTION
steel, UV-print on PET-G film
100 x 130 x 76 cm
2022
The unwrapping of a 3D scan of the front of the thorax is translated into a mapping in which those areas of the polygon mesh which show the highest information density are erased. Instead, like a detaching layer of skin, a new topography studded with text rises above the reflective steel. The re-formulation of the Hippocratic text "On the Humours” gives - in contrast to the original text - voice to a subject which speaks from a counter patriarchal perspective, refusing the attributions and interpretations of symptoms, emancipates itself instead, empowers its own bio-activities and ascribes a creative agency to physical materiality.
The visitor is invited to approach the shedded text-skin as a table or a topographical display of a landscape, in the broadest sense, whilst overlapping with their own reflection in the polished steel. Embodied knowledge hereby is understood as an equal source of scientific discourse production, but other than this speaks of an honest fragility, the need of care and steady metamorphosis.
THE COLOUR OF THE HUMOURS, WHERE THERE IS NO EBB OF THEM, IS LIKE THAT OF FLOWERS /// I AM TENDING OUTWARDS OR INWARDS, OR IN ANY OTHER NECESSARY DIRECTION / TENDENCY UPWARDS, TENDENCY DOWNWARDS / SPONTANEOUS MOVEMENTS UPWARDS, DOWNWARDS / DEVIATION, TO THE HEAD, TO THE SIDES, OFF THE ROUTES TO WHICH I TEND / REVISION / DOWNWARDS WHEN THERE IS AN UPWARDS TENDENCY / UPWARDS WHEN THERE IS A DOWNWARDS TENDENCY / DEFLECTION / CAUTION (CAUTION, YOU SAID) / NO SOOTHING REMEDIES / CAUTION (CAUTION I SAID) / I AM SOAKING UP EXPERIENCE / I AM DRYING UP, GETTING WASHED OUT / DO NOT SHUT UP MY EXTRAVASATED HUMOURS / DO NOT DRY UP MY EVACUATIONS / I AM FLOODING OUT / WASHING THROUGH / WITHDRAWING MY POISONS AND INFLAMMATIONS / BULGING MY GROWTHS AND AFFECTIONS / CAUTION (CAUTION, I SAID) / STOP BREATHING DOWN MY NECK /// DISTURBANCE /// I VOMIT / I EVACUATE / I SPIT / I COUGH / I BELCH / I HICCOUGH / I SWELL / I PISS / I SNEEZE / I CRY / I ITCH / I TOUCH / I AM THIRSTY / I AM HUNGRY / I SLEEP / I FEEL PAIN / I DO NOT FEEL AT ALL / I LEARN / I REMEMBER / I SPEAK / I CHOOSE SILENCE /// THERE ARE NO SYMPTOMS WHICH CEASE OF THEMSELVES / THE BLISTERS THAT RISE UPON MY BURNS RECEDE BUT ONLY FOR A WHILE / PURGATIONS / EVACUATIONS (FROM ABOVE) / I FEEL GREASY / UNCOMPOUNDED / FOAMY / HOT / BITING / CARVED / WITH SHRED, LEES OR BLOOD / MISSING AIR / UN-CONCOCTED / DESICCATED / THE NATURE OF THE LIQUID, BEFORE DANGER COMES, DOES NOT LOOK AT WHAT OUGHT TO BE STOPPED / THE NATURE OF THE LIQUID JUST FLOODS ALL OVER / LIKE ORGASMS / OPENING AND EMPTYING / WARMING AND CHILLING / WITHIN AND WITHOUT / THE EVACUATIONS ERUPT COLD AND FETID / DRY AND MOIST /// MY ARDENT FEVERS (THIRST WAS NOT PRESENT BEFORE) INFLAME THE WETNESS OF MY NOSTRILS / PROSTRATION / DRYNESS OR FULNESS OF MY BODY / RAPID RESPIRATION / PULSATIONS / CHILLS / PALPITATIONS / HARD SKIN / CRAMPED MUSCLES / GRINDING JOINTS / SUFFOCATING VOICE / INVOLUNTARY POSTURE / POWER, (OR THE WILL OF POWER TO BEAR EASILY WHAT IS NECESSARY) / CAUTION (CAUTION YOU SAID) / REDUCTION TO A FAINTING CONDITION / CAUTION (CAUTION I SAID) / YOU DON’T READ MY GALVANIC SKIN /// THE SIMILAR HAS ALWAYS BEEN HARMFUL / I AM SUCKING IN THE CONTRARY / THOSE WHO COME CLOSE WILL SUFFER LESIONS FIRST AND MOST / STEP BACK (STEP BACK, I SAID) / I AM COLLAPSING, IMPLODING /// TEACH ME YOUR ABNORMAL CONDITIONS / DO NOT TRY TO NOURISH ME / DO NOT FORCE IT ON ME / DO NOT TRY TO PREVENT THE OUTBREAK OF THE CRISES / AND WHEN IT COMES, DO NOT DISTURB / LEAVE ME ALONE /// DO NOT EXPECT ANY SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT (NOT NOW, NOT AT ONCE, NOT AT ALL) /// I WILL CHANNEL YOUR EVACUATING HUMOURS IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION TO WHICH THEY TEND / DRYING AND MOISTEN MYSELF / MY DRYNESS WILL BE HOT AND MY MOIST WILL BE COLD (THAT IS WHAT USUALLY HAPPENS) / TRY NOT TO PRODUCE THE OPPOSITE EFFECT / THE CRISES ARE RATHER UNCERTAIN /// EVACUATIONS TOWARDS ALL OPENINGS, EVACUATING UPWARDS, EVACUATING DOWNWARDS / THE PURGINGS APPEAR COPIOUSLY / IN RISING FREQUENCY / WITH THE ADVANCING CRISES / THE EFFECTS DO NOT DIFFER TO YOU / MAY THEY COME FROM THE UNHINGING HUMOURS OR FROM THE EXHAUSTION OF MY BODY AND SOUL / LOOK AT MY SWOLLEN SPLEEN / MY EVIL COMPLEXION / MY PARCHED BODY / HUSH / LOOK AT IT (LOOK AT IT, I SAID) / AND I WILL GROW EVEN MORE SKINNY / ALL COLOUR WILL YIELD OFF MY FACE / AND I WILL WRING OUT MY SPLEEN LIKE A SPONGE OVER YOUR GREEDY TONGUE / I GOT PRACTICED IN THESE THINGS /// I TEND TO INTEMPERANCE IN DRINKING AND EATING / INTEMPERANCE IN WAKEFULNESS / THE ENDURANCE OF TOIL / SELDOM FOR THE SAKE OF CERTAIN PASSIONS (WHICH I FAIL TO FEEL) / BUT RATHER FOR THE SAKE OF CRAFT OR ITS NECESSITY / I DO NOT TEND TO ANY IRREGULARITY OF SUCH ENDURANCE /// FEARS / SHAME / PAIN / PLEASURE / PASSION / SWEATS / PALPITATION OF THE HEART / SOME SPRING FROM THE SMELLS OF MUD OR MARSHES / OTHERS FROM WATERS, STONES AND WINDS /// I HAD A BILIOUS SUMMER / STILL I DARE TO SEEK FOR YOUR YELLOW CRAVINGS /// MY WOUNDS BECAME SOFT / ESPECIALLY IN MY MOUTH AND PRIVY PARTS AND SIMILAR CAVERNOUS PLACES / JUST AFTER YOU (YOU AND WITH YOU THIS UNBEARABLY HOT, BURNING SOUTH WIND) HAVE CALMED DOWN AND RETREATED /// I KNOW THAT IT IS CHANGES THAT ARE MAINLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS / AND MAINLY THE GREATEST ONES / THE VIOLENT ALTERATIONS / AND MY CHILDISH DROWNING FEAR IN FRONT /// AFTER THE FIRST RAINS / WHEN RAIN IS COMING AFTER A LONG DEBILITATING DROUGHT / IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ME TO PREDICT THESE DROPSIS AND FLOODS ///