InSight: Visualizing Health Humanities group exhibit
Serpens Oleum: The Phantasmagoric Amphigorium of Dr. Wybury
Interactive art installation by Marlena Wyman and Chris Westbury
In the InSight: Visualizing Health Humanities exhibit
Fine Arts Building Gallery, University of Alberta, May 15-June 9, 2012
Opening reception May 17, 7PM -10PM
Installation description
Serpens Oleum: The Phantasmagoric Amphigorium of Dr. Wybury
An interactive computer screen and *“Victorian” mouse are housed in the top section of a Victorian cabinet of medical curiosities assembled from Marlena Wyman’s collections. The screen combines digital images of Marlena’s phantasmagoria (her medical/Victorian based artwork) and Chris Westbury’s amphigory (his language-based computer program of bogus medical advice). With our installation, we are seeking to raise questions about how medical facts are presented and simplified for popular consumption; in particular the way in which we are bombarded with “medical fact” via the internet, and how misinterpretation or incomplete reporting of research can subvert medical fact, resulting in a modern version of the snake oil elixir of Victorian times.
View more images in Gallery section of my website
See on-line exhibit catalogue here
*”Victorian” mouse created by Isaac Lank, U of A Dept of Psychology
Pictures