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I AM NOT A PIECE OF MEAT is a digital artwork and immersive digital experience by Prof. Anna Furse commissioned by the Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme (CAPP). The viewer is invited to embark on a journey and enter the realm of Renaissance European Anatomy Theatres, contemporary dissections labs, myth and taboo – the world of THE ANATOMY ACT.
The spectator is drawn into a meditation on the reality of the body in life and death, the status of the cadaver, and the moral and ethical issues surrounding our attitude, past and present, to the parsed and opened body. The artwork includes a series of commissioned writings from artists, scholars, cultural critics, anatomists and curators as well as new writing by Furse herself, accompanied by a specially commissioned soundtrack composed and performed by world-renowned saw-player David Coulter.
As part of Furse’s CAPP Research Residency for THE ANATOMY ACT, she worked in collaboration with medical professionals at Trinity College Hospital Anatomy Department, Dublin, and the Department of Anatomy at King’s College, London.
I AM NOT A PIECE OF MEAT steps beyond the parameters of traditional artform conventions to innovate and expand the theatre space, and transfer it into new experiential online, virtual and augmented experiences of live performance. The digital artwork presents research and production materials – text, video, medical art, sound scores, still images and ‘out-takes’ from the performed work. However, instead of representing documentation, the digital artwork endeavours to generate a digital interface that is interactive and experiential, investigating the parameters between dissemination, live performance and remote critical engagement.
I AM NOT A PIECE OF MEAT is the last of three projects within Furse’s overarching project THE THEATRE OF OUR BODIES.