Zombie Time: Experiments in Autopathographic Performance
Introduction
Project Description
This project explores autobiographical performance about illness and dying (autopathography). The project emerged through O’Brien surpassing the average life expectancy for someone with cystic fibrosis (CF). Using autoethnographic writing, video art and durational performance, the project explores O’Brien’s notion of zombie time - the temporal experience of living longer than expected.
Research Imperatives
- To explore how durational performance can function as a mode of autopathographic performance.
- To experiment with ways of making illness and dying visible through performance.
- To investigate the zombie as an allegory for the experience of chronic illness.
- To explore the potentials of the archive as a generative site for performance making.
Research Process
2015: First performance, Taste of Flesh/Bite Me I’m Yours. The Unwell film is commissioned and made.
2016: Film The Unwell screened. Two performances developed in collaboration with Sheree Rose, exploring the histories of illness through her archive of work with live artist Bob Flanagan (who also had CF).
2017: 30 actions to camera filmed during the 30 hours leading up to O’Brien reaching the CF average life expectancy, in a disused morgue.
2018-2020: Critical reflections on the work through publications, including the book Survival of the Sickest: The Art of Martin O'Brien.
2020: Performance lecture at Tate Britain Until the Last Breath is Breathed using the footage from the morgue. This is the culmination of the project.
Research Findings
- “Zombie Time” opens up ways of discussing the sick body which allow spectators to experience the ambiguity of living on without recovery.
- Durational performance enables an exploration of temporalities of chronic illness in ways that undermine common representations of the patient.
- Archives can be generative sites for making performance about sickness and dying through reactivating historical work.
Outputs
- Taste of Flesh/Bite Me I’m Yours (2015)
- If It Were the Apocalypse I’d Eat You To Stay Alive (2015-2018)
- The Viewing (2016)
- The Unwell (2016)
- Until the Last Breath is Breathed (2020)