Context:

This video work was commissioned by Art Space Coventry as part of their City Arcadia project. It was filmed in 2015 and first shown at Spill Festival of Performance in 2016. The work was filmed over a five night period from 1-6am each day. It imagines a fictional world in which only ‘the unwell’ survive. The film uses the physiology of CF to develop the figure of the zombies. The fictional word of the zombies is broken by my coughing body, and expelling mucus.

 

Imperatives: 

• 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. 

 

Critical Reflection and Dissemination: 

• O’Brien, Martin and David MacDiarmid (eds). (2018) Survival of the Sickest: The Art of Martin O'Brien, London: Live Art Development Agency. 
• O’Brien, Martin. You Are My Death: The Shattered Temporalities of Zombie Time, (Wellcome Open, 2020) 

 

Research Findings:

• “Zombie Time” opens up ways of discussing the sick body which allow spectators to experience the ambiguity of living on without recovery.