Context:

This piece marks the end of the project. The work is a performance lecture which happened in 2020 at Tate Britain. It used video footage filmed in an abandoned morgue in 2017 over the 30 hours leading up to me reaching the average life expectancy for someone with CF. I performed one action on the hour, every hour, for the full duration. These thirty actions were edited into a film that formed the central part of the performance lecture, alongside a series of live actions and spoken texts. The readings explored the notion of zombie time. 

  

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 Reflections and Dissemination: 

• 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.