Eidolon

Eidolon was presented at the World Congress of Biomedical Ethics IAB2016, as a series of live performances at the Clinical Skills Assessment Centre, Western General Hospital. 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.For IAB2016 I presented a 30minute extract of Eidolon featuring performers Freya Jeffs and Magnus Sinding.

Eidolon was developed at the Scottish Centre for Simulation and Clinical Human Factors (SCSCHF) at the Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Larbert, and is supported by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, Creative Scotland and the University of Edinburgh, with additional support from NHS Lothian.