The Visceral Garden — Landscape & Specimen
2014
Project Details
The Visceral Garden — Landscape & Specimen
analogue prints, back illuminated transparencies, and a four channel performative video
The Visceral Garden — Landscape & Specimen articulates the ontological experience of chronic illness through interpretive narrative. Set in imaginary landscapes, it incorporates the motifs of Greco-Roman storytelling (Arachne and Orpheus). Transforming from gold to copper and then into a red figure, John A Douglas is trapped by Arachne (Naomi Oliver) and then falls from a portal into a visceral underworld where he is eventually devoured by diseased organs.
Organ specimens which correspond with the artists’ medical conditions are collaged into surreal landscapes, signifying the various states that his body experiences; a forest of bones represents hyperphosphorus, a macro view of an asthmatic lung becomes a satellite view of a desert landscape, and a parathyroid gland evokes a strange underwater creature. The work defines the delicate balance and daily struggle between illness and recovery, death and survival and the interconnectedness of all living things.
Production Credits
Performers: John A Douglas, Naomi Oliver
Soundtrack and Arrangements: John A Douglas, Heath Franco, Naomi Oliver
Location Sound: John A Douglas
Cameras: John A Douglas, Heath Franco, Kristian Haggblom, Alejandro Rolandi
Macro Photography and Videography: John A Douglas
Editing, digital compositing and animation: John A Douglas
Chroma key studio consultant: Heath Franco
Riggers: Alejandro Rolandi
Illuminated LED photobox production and design: Sandy Prints
Special thanks to Bec Dean at Performance Space, Su Goldfish at IO Myer UNSW and Derek Williamson at the UNSW Museum of Human Disease.
Lighting and studio facilities courtesy of UNSW TV
Bec Dean, ‘Underworlds’, The Visceral Garden — Landscape & Specimen catalogue, Chalk Horse, February 2014