Barb Macek | The Poetical Anamnesis

The Poetical Anamnesis / PA is a technique to investigate the existential dimension of autoimmune diseases. It conceptualizes the autoimmune body as a modified and therefore poetic body. The symptoms of the disease are read as signs of an organism transforming into a poetical means of world modification. 

The application of the PA results in a lyrical series: With every new poem the patient is created as a transient poetical formation; new information emerges and becomes comprehensible, and the result is a gain of meaning on the aesthetic as well as on the medical and the personal side.

The crow is the agent poétique or third agent within the PA. It is a mythical messenger with the ability to wander between the worlds. In a hospital environment it is conspicuously misplaced – challenging the clinical environment, inviting a change of perspectives, inviting transgressions.

Link to the Practice Sharing – Video as part of the Presentations of the Language Based Artistic Research Group during the SAR International Forum for Artistic Research 2024 in Tilburg/NL.