After
the patients have been evacuated, the hospital is free
to succumb to its own mortality. In the throes of its disintegration
it makes a mockery of the order and hygiene formerly attempted
within. The buildings themselves give in to their contamination.
Behind closed curtains, the hospital changes into its own
funeral parlor.
Confronted
with remnants of suffering, the task of performing a hospital
autopsy can be grim. Yet its anatomical model provides
an unprecedented insight into the machinery that awaits
our own deterioration. As it was forbidden centuries ago
to peek inside a dead body, we are likewise now told that
the innards of these institutions are things we are not
meant to see.
But
here we not only like to play by different rules but invent
an entirely new game. Hospital Hopscotch, for instance,
could be played by reassembling as many layers of this
corpse as are available: a patient's gown, a vial of dried blood, a half-completed Rorschach test. Death leads to renewal.
From the stained base of the autopsy table, perform a one-legged
leap into the more colorful recesses of your imagination.
Where you'll end up, only you can know. |