OCCULT BLOOD

Occult Blood is a series of works generated from medical visualisation software using DICOM format imagery obtained from computed tomography (CT) scanning medical equipment. The used data is a CT scanned image of a bone sculpture (Untitled No.7) created in 2016. In 2017 I started researching the internal dynamics of sculpture, using various digital platforms (medical scanning hardware and software, digital manipulating platforms, and virtual reality). Experimenting with the data and the imagery I either enhanced and extended in different formats the underlining themes of the bone-works: the philosophy of meditative silence, aesthetic concentration, and stillness; or as in this series of works, I used and experimented with the direct antithesis: unsettledness, disease, and depression. In this series depression is explored as a hidden disease, an illness that the sufferer alone experiences and understands, a veiled ailment that isn’t visible to anyone standing around the subject. These subtle forms of psychic toxins, depression and illness (both psychological and physical) cannot be observed by the naked eye. In the Sanskrit language the translation for depression is Viṣāda (विषाद) that stems from the seminal word Víṣh (विष) referring to poison. Depression injures the mind, makes it fragile and vulnerable. It is a misalignment of the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual bodies. A sickness and a disorder. Depending on its degree of intensity depression creates and causes different pathologies and manifestations, be they a cognitive fog, an apathy and the withdrawal from society, be they physical illnesses, suicidal thoughts and indeed the resolve to end one’s life. It can also render a person physically dysfunctional. The difference between sadness and depression is that the latter’s roots are deeply embedded and seem to bypass and utterly ignore the logic of how to harness reason that may help find her way out of the labyrinthine coils of this illness. In a hidden subtle manifestation, the body too gives signs that indicate that there are internal areas within the body organs that are experiencing distress. One method of testing for this is FOBT: Faecal Occult Blood Test that investigates for any possible irritations or disease by searching faecal samples for hidden traces of blood that are not visible to the naked eye. The blood is in turn examined to search for any indication of malfunctions, cancer, or polyps. This is then studied further and examined with colonoscopy procedures wherein the relevant medical software to view and analyse the condition are used. These images are a result of using the mentioned DICOM data through visual colonoscopy imagery and digital graphic editors, using the same methods that search for hidden physical ailments. These images are a result of experimenting with virtual endoscopy and other digital platforms, exploring the internal subtle forms of mental poison, depression, and illness coarse/physical, subtle/psychological and causal/spiritual that cannot be seen by the naked eye.