These videos, created by Gordon specifically for the Embodiments exhibition, explore historical and contemporary images of the inside of the body, and evoke the anxiety, fascination and wonder when we “go inside.”
1. "Surrender" (3:53 minutes)
This video combines images from x-rays and the operating room, and begins by evoking the anxiety one feels when the integrity of the body is in jeopardy, as one anticipates the surgeon entering into the body. During surgery, one is faced with the fragility, the impermanence of the body. One must surrender control and enter into the dreamlike state of anesthesia, to reside in another place . . . somewhere.
2. "Looking Within" (Part 1, 4:46 minutes)
An Anatomical Timeline, 13th century – 21st century
This video traces anatomical images through time: from the anatomical drawings created in the 13th century when human dissection began in Europe to 21st century images created by non-invasive means of entering the living human body, such as x-rays, CT scans and MRIs.
3. "Looking Within" (Part 2, 6:00 minutes)
A Video Montage of Anatomical Images
Beginning and ending with images of the “Venus,” the center of La Specola’s anatomical wax collection, this video juxtaposes anatomical images from different centuries. For example, electron microscopic images of bone become a backdrop for morphing bodily images which eventually become 3 dimensional CT scans of the heart and internal organs.