Dis-ease is an animated database table installation designed to call attention to our ever-changing conception of disease throughout different time periods and cultures. Exploring difficult questions raised by gene mapping and the disease experience, viewers become participants in this quest as they access information on common disorders, genetic components, and consider historical and cross-cultural theories of disease. They are then invited to add their own personal stories to the database.

In a kind of a 'theatre of anatomy,' viewers/participants examine and 'operate' this discursive 'body' to find stories:
scientific, historical/cultural, and personal. This body of knowledge is a visual and conceptual moving target full of contradictions and partial knowledge. Both the scientific data and personal experience of disease blur together, as do different cultures and time periods. It aims to encourage people to think about the personal and cultural ramifications - both life giving and problematic - of the stories we will tell about our bodies in the coming decades.

In the installation, an ethereal moving 'body' of images and text fragments are projected down onto an 'anatomy' table. Beneath the layer of text lies a changing 'exquisite corpse' made from changing medical representations of the body through history: anatomy drawings, x-rays, MRIs, chromosomes, PCR maps etc. The table is aluminum and frosted clear Plexiglas so the imagery glows, giving it an ephemeral quality. Stories, information, and images scroll and pan across its surface to create the dynamic body/figure. Visitors can search keywords and enter stories into the database based on their own experience or knowledge. An ambient textural soundtrack accompanies the table animation.


Credits:

Artist (Concept, Design, and Visuals): Christa Erickson

Genetics Collaborator: Matt Elrod-Erickson, PhD

Social History Researcher: Tara Burk, Christa Erickson, and others

Programming: Steven Sehgal, Rishi Rakesh, Christa Erickson, and Nanda Chiu

Fabrication: Christa Erickson

Sound: Michelle Wacker and Christa Erickson

Personal Stories: Many people (thanks!)

Funded by an artist's grant from the JGS Foundation.