Here lie four specimens of the future represented on dissection tables of a not too distantly imagined anatomy lesson. Like current procedures learnt through working with cadaverous or modelled material, these sculptures show imagined surgeries that deal with the onset of new enhancement technologies being introduced into the body. With advancements in biomedical and healthcare technologies the body is increasingly considered a site of change. Yet the exciting prospect of bodily advancement and enhancement is rarely represented from the view of the professional practitioner who will have to implement or maintain this technology. In a quasi-simulation of future medicine, the audience can probe futuristically modified body parts in order to consider how we might prepare for procedures such as removing a cyst that has developed on a bionic eye implant, or how to clean a nanoparticle filter from the trachea. 

 

May the use of futuristic moulage encourage us to reflect on what kinds of bodily alterations are worthy of continued research and development? Or more importantly might we reconsider altering ourselves, the potential future patients?

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Work supported by AFK, The Waag Society, Mediamatic, Vrij University, Transtechnology research and CogNovo