Anna Furse (Author/Director): GLASSBODY – Reflecting on Becoming Transparent

London, UK: Funded by Arts Council and a People Award from The Wellcome Trust.

Performance installation commissioned by and premiered at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in March 2006. The project toured in the UK in 2007: The Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster, The Cultural Xchanges Festival De Monfort University, Leicester and a three-week run at Guys and St Thomas’s Hospital sponsored by The London Arts In Health Forum (LAHF). It was favourably reviewed by The Guardian, Time Out, The Times Saturday Review and The Medical Student ( see below) . The tour was accompanied by a range of public talks including at a conference on theatre and motherhood in connection with the launch of the book Staging Motherhood by Jozefina Komporaly (Palgrave Macmillan 2007) that features substantial writing about my productions in this area of research. In London LAHF organised a special talk that was chaired by Professor Brian Hurwitz, Medicine and the Arts at Kings College. Anna delivered a total of six papers on the project which remains accessible to the research community and public via her company’s website www.athletesoftheheart.org. A DVD by Arts Archives available via their catalogue: www.arts-archives.org.

GLASS BODY is innovative in research questions, methodology and context and distinguished itself in the Arts and Health movement as a significant quality work. It was described by the Arts Council as an “exemplary high quality Arts and Health project”. It features in: Research Report: Mapping Arts, Health and Higher Education Collaborative Projects in London by Jill Sheridan and Professor Linda Pring, (LCACE, Arts Council of England, Goldsmiths 2007).

Drawing on the tradition of 17th century anatomical lessons, recorded in many paintings of the time, GLASSBODY recognises and reflects on the abiding overlapping of scientific and artistic portrayals of the interior world of the human body. It questions where we draw the line between medical, diagnostic motive, and the sheer delight of becoming see-through.

The piece explores an emotional relationship to the interior human body and contemplates how the body is presented as spectacular in our contemporary, digitalised, medical environment. “Specifically it refers us to ultrasound scanning, where, in Assisted Reproduction protocols, it is used throughout gestation, from ovulation to embryo transfer to diagnostic scanning of the baby in utero,” explains Anna. “This piece locates the power of such imagery in our imaginations and self-awareness. It also muses on its heritage via other forms of imaging, X-ray and the military derivation of sonar research.It blends multi-scale film projection, live performance and composed sound in a sensory, visceral and poetic narrative to question our physical presence in a technological age. In short: how do we feel when we see inside?”

“Physical transparency is a key issue in this beautifully assembled and gently suggestive belnd of live performance ( by Marie Gabrielle Rotie), poetic text, sound and image inspired by its creator Anna furse’ experience of ultrasound technology. Less than half an hour long, it’s a small, thoughtful gem of medical, cultural and artistic enquiries” TIME OUT

“probing and intelligent, and the intimacy of the experience creates a dreamy spell that gets under your skin so that long after it has finished you have a heightened awareness of your own body” LYN GARDNER, THE GUARDIAN

“the overlapping of art and science worked well….throws up all sort of disturbing tangents” KATE MUIR THE TIMES MAGAZINE

“Rotie's silent and enigmatic performance presence is beautifully played; the interplay of screen images (flying birds, babes-in-the-womb, X-rayed limbs, playing children) and live actions (the laying out of a set of child's clothes, the pulling of a string of DNA-like beads from the mouth, the ritual washing and cleansing) are lovely images that work in harmony" TOTAL THEATRE MAGAZINE

"GLASS BODY’s two week residency in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital was a resounding success.……The research for the performance was meticulous, with the balance of emotional response and technical information clearly structured so as not to baffle the audience." ALEX MINTON, HOSPITAL ARTS,CHELSEA AND WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL

"a wonderful piece of performance art, that represented the emotions we see on a daily basis." JULIAN NORMAN TAYLOR, DIRECTOR, ASSISTED CONCEPTION UNIT, CHELSEA AND WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL

glassbody flyer[pdf].