Eidolon

Beverley Hood (Artist), Freya Jeffs (Performer), Pauline Goldsmith (Performer), Stanley Pattison (Performer)

Research output: Non-textual formExhibition

Abstract / Description of output

Edinburgh College of Art 13 – 21 & 24 – 27 August 2016

Eidolon is presented at the Edinburgh Art Festival as a series of live performances at the Clinical Skills Assessment Centre, Western General Hospital, and an accompanying video installation at Edinburgh College of Art. Eidolon aims to explore the relationship between the body and technology, as well as the effects that technology has on our perception of what it means to be human and alive. 
Developed at the Scottish Centre for Simulation & Clinical Human Factors (SCSCHF) at the Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Larbert, the project began in 2013 as a series of observation visits to the simulation centre. It was developed and broadened through collaborative performance workshops with actors Pauline Goldsmith and Stanley Pattison, dancer Freya Jeffs and dramaturg Jeremy Weller, as well as the ongoing input of the simulation centre staff.
Eidolon evolved into an intimate site-specific, immersive live performance, which is comprised of a series of interwoven vignettes, and is presented within medical simulation centres that mimic clinical hospital locations, such as operating theatres and hospital wards. The performance brings the general public into a unique space within the NHS, opening up a window into a world of high level technology, and into an area that is normally only accessible to medical professionals. 
Eidolon echoes, yet at the same time disrupts, the everyday activities of the simulation centre and explores the emotive and psychological potential of these spaces, and the patient simulator manikins found within them. The manikins are technological bodies that have been embodied with human physical responses such as voice, pulse, breath and tears that are used for teaching and learning purposes. Eidolon unsettles the ethical boundaries and relationship between medical practitioner and patient, or patient manikin, and hints at the possibility of latent physical, psychological and emotional realms within human-like bodies.
The accompanying video installation hosted at Edinburgh College of Art, presents two extracts of the Eidolon performance ManiDance and ManiChat.
ManiDanceDuration: 18minsPerformers: Freya Jeffs, Stanley Pattison ManiDance is a duet acted out in private between dancer and a patient manikin, in parts, within the simulation centre ward, observed via CCTV style cameras. The audience witnesses the performer waver between delusion and awareness as to the nature of her partner, moving through an emotional spectrum of tenderness, care and rejection.
ManiChat Duration: 17mins 30secs Performers: Pauline Goldsmith, Freya Jeffs, Stanley PattisonManiChat features the manikin in conversation with an attending medical staff member, prepping an upcoming medical simulation, observed via CCTV style cameras. The manikin melancholically meditates on its life as a generic, technological body.
Attendance =  2,900
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 12 Aug 2016

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  • Eidolon

    Hood, B.

    1/10/1315/09/17

    Project: University Awarded Project Funding

  • IDENTITY - Black Box Pop-up Cinema

    Hood, B. & Borland, C., 11 Feb 2019

    Research output: Non-textual formExhibition

  • Hybrid to Simulated Invention

    Hood, B., 1 Nov 2018, Explorations in Art & Technology. Springer

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

  • Eidolon360 - A VR experience

    Hood, B. & Flint, T., 11 Jul 2018

    Research output: Non-textual formExhibition

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