MEDICAL ANALYSIS LAB

The act here is intended as a working drawing: stripping bare, it will reference the primal BODY, functional mechanism. The body as flesh, the sick body, the dead body. No coincidence though, faced with this artistic proposition, which fuses with the painful experience of the illness and passing of my own father in December of this very year. The artistic action always works echoing real life. A sick body is a body that waits, that rests. Dependent on and spectator of the life of others.

INTENTION
DEATH/SCENE/VIDEO/PHOTO/PAINTING/MODEL

In this approach to the body, in this perspective, a video from the series “HABITÉE” (“INHABITED”) was shot in the Montreuil apartment, his final resting place. The body there plays on an ambiguity, that of a still image video-recorded for thirty-three breaths. The number thirty-three that doctors sometimes require. This figure, motionless and naked, disturbs. Watching something where almost nothing happens. Choice of medium? Why film what doesn’t move? Why not a photo? Only the breathing attests to the body’s life. The body is lying down. It looks like a painting. These are a model’s poses. It is as if it “fell” to the ground, but gracefully, in different rooms of the apartment. The living room, the bedroom, the hallway, the kitchen, the toilets, the bathroom, the entryway...

From this filmed image of a body that does not move, this image like a photo, this image like a painting, this image like the corpses in the morgue, we had to slip further down. To set this transposition in real action.

The dictionary explains “morbidezza” as the delicacy of touch in painting.

SETTING

There is the waiting room with its table and catalogues, its black leather folding chairs, its umbrella stand. There is my video “L’HABITÉE” (“THE INHABITED”) which runs for forty-five minutes. Looping. There are windows, some of which are obscured by my X-rays. There is a fireplace. There are art objects exhibited on the walls, the fireplace... pretty much everywhere. The ground is clear. Wooden flooring (?). The room is accessible by a large entryway, like a porch. In the foreground, in the hall, there are currents of air, concrete, and street noises that enter.

ACTION: THE WAITING ROOM

I am naked and wrapped in a thin black cloth, the kind used for linings. I am standing, I wait; I will begin when I want to. Some people will have to be there already, looking at the exhibition. It must be past 7:30 pm, perhaps. Here we go, I move, I move around slowly, I enter the waiting and exhibition room. Slow movements. I let the cloth drop to my feet. I place on the ground a first title, letter by letter. Cut from silver cardboard. TITLE I: “ELISABETH MORCELLET.” Then I freeze, standing, feet on this “shell” of black cloth....Venus coming out of nowhere. A number of letters are scattered on the ground; they will form: “JUNE 13, 2002.” “THE MORBID/GOD/DESS.” “MORBIDNESS DELICACY” “DWELL REMAIN” “33 INHALES EXHALES”. Being silent. Writing and freezing. Standing soberly, feet anchored to the black cloth.

After the last title, the lying down poses will begin.

The visitors enter full of energy, a glass of wine in hand. Children with their parents. The woman is naked. Well. Great. Unexpected. It passes. I’m in the middle of their feet. I hear heels that threaten my flesh. A fragile body. People avoid me. People barely look at me. A fallen body. There is this movement of the crowd. Surprise. Embarrassment. Stopping. Small islands skirt around me, look at me. They are quiet, waiting for something. Their presence. Warmth of bodies. Sweat. Breath. Alcohol. Some sit down. A breeze from outside carried by the clothes. Perfumes. Smoke. I am submerged, rigid, frozen in the middle of them. They move. In my passive appearance, I’m alive and breathing sixty miles an hour. At rest, listening. Boiling. Garish and crude painting. Skin color. Do you see? Inside. Outside. Eyes closed, open. Strength of nothing. Do nothing. Power of inertia: each space will be taken, conquered, felt, breathed. Its resonances, its odors, its dust, its light....

The cloth covers some body parts sometimes. Above, below.

When the body moves, it does so slowly. Choreography in slow motion. It wakes up, begins to move again. Does the sleeping goddess expect a prince’s kiss? The child recognizes it. And I leave the room. By another door. Out. A first end. Gold and X-rays. Time passes. I come back. In. Same door. I am wrapped in this gold and silver rescue blanket. Torn, resewn, restored ends, all wrinkled. Since 1987, I have used this accessory: as a screen, mirror, dazzle, reflection, protection. It envelops me, protects me. It saves lives on the brink of the abyss. Fallen to the ground. In a coma. After collapsing. Revive. Quick. Warm back up before death can...I will use the X-rays placed on my body on the corresponding spots. Poses and rigidness in the movement of the visitors. In the heart of the space. Again this turning of the body and then leaving. The same door. Out.

THE HALL

Reappearing then in the somber entryway of the hall. A video is projected directly on the wall. Gliding like a shadow in the golden gleam of the blanket. Along the walls. Standing on tiptoe. A place between inside and outside. Fresh air. They come in, they go out, they fidget. I watch. I will circle the room, standing up, step by step, delicately and coldly. They will spot me. They will leave. The loop will soon be finished. Pass under the archway to cross for the last time. I walk. A rigid, upright stone slab, advancing towards the exit. And it will be finished for me. Body drained. Longing for clothes, for words. No one applauds something that has neither beginning nor end. That’s fine. This is something else. Art, action is an existential search that seeks to confront the living. In quest of a unique experience. An attitude of intimacy that gazes deeply into the eyes of the other. Pleasure...