Immobile Choreography

Immobile Choreography is a publication to accompany the project of the same name, exhibited at the Suttie Arts Space, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, from 20th April – 16th June 2019. The publication includes contributions from Dr Silvia Casini, Beverley Hood and Professor David Lurie and is available from the GHAT online shop. The installation was commissioned by Grampian Hospitals Art Trust (GHAT) in partnership with University of Aberdeen’s Bio Medical Physics department, to mark IDentIFY, a pioneering research project developing Fast Field-Cycling MRI (FFC-MRI), a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, funded by Horizon2020.

During the MRI/FFC-MRI scanning process the subject is required remain as still as possible, wearing an MRI coil (head, breast, knee, etc). However, being immobile does not mean that we are empty of potential, imagination or in fact actual movement on a molecular level (which the FFC-MRI is influencing and aligning). The Immobile Choreography installation materialises the scanned body as a digital performer, transformed from the medical to poetic. The otherworldly performer acts out choreographed movement, imaginatively attuned to the parameters of the FFC-MRI scanner process and apparatus.

The installation is comprised of video projections, sound, lighting system and 3D printed MRI coils. The work was devised in collaboration with the IDentIFY project team, dancer Freya Jeffs and photographer Rebecca Milling.