RETURN TO OLDER WORKS
with practice, 2007
Details
Installation of related works, all dimensions variable.
SimMan - Video projection
A,B,C,D,E - Interactive installation - embedded sound, text, stethoscopes
PhotoBooth - Video work on computer screen
With Practice - Interactive installation - medical demonstration limbs, sheet of instructions for use
Photography: Ian Kingsnorth
DESCRIPTION
Borland’s recent work has focused on research within medical and research institutions; at Glasgow medical school she became fascinated by the growing dependence on simulation in medical training. For example, students increasingly engage in role-play with actors to develop the use of para-linguistics (eg body language and silence) as professional tools of communication in such potentially difficult scenarios as the breaking of bad news.
For Social Systems Borland shows new work resulting from research at the Knowledge Spa at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, the public education face of the Peninsula Medical School. Using a range of media - video projection, sculpture and sound - she explores the subject of ‘practice’. Created for the spaces at Newlyn Art Gallery, these works include an animated projection of a computer controlled, life-sized mannequin known as SimMan - essentially an artificial patient used by students as a diagnostic tool. To the passer-by the projected image might seem still. Yet closer attention reveals Borland’s subtle and unnerving manipulation and enhancement of the dummy’s otherwise clunky - and obviously simulated human functions. Borland is also investigating the use of high-tech prosthetic limbs in which students practice incisions and suturing.
Another work, a sound piece comprising interviews with students recounting their actual experiences with patients - often more chaotic and confusing than the standard five step, standard ‘A,B,C,D,E’ training instructions suggest, pointing to the discrepancies that occur between training and practice, between systems of rules of procedures and the ways in which these are personalised to make them meaningful in the real world.
Adapted from Social Systems Catalogue text by Virginia Button.
Social Systems; an exhibition of new works by international artists and artists’ collectives who work in a wide variety of media and use a series of processes to develop products, systems and tools that create situations in which visitors are invited to perform – a social sculpture in progress.