In the Absence of Running: From Injury and Medical Intervention to Art

In recent years I have developed an endurance running art-practice as part of a larger inquiry into the performative nature of human physical activity. In the Absence of Running is series of artworks made using images from medical arthroscopic interventions, following the diagnosis of medial meniscus tears to the cartilage and osteoarthritis in both my knees. Faced with not being able to run, or to make artworks using running in the long-term, I turned to the tools of medical intervention. If a camera was going inside my knee for the purpose of surgery, I would use it for the purpose of art. The resulting videos and photographs led to a contemplation on the image and viewing practices not previously anticipated, not least on the now endemic uses of advanced imaging technologies as integral parts of surgical operations. Their reassembly as a stop-frame animation and artist’s book in physical and electronic form enabled a process of slowing down and re-engagement with the image and physicality of the book itself and processes and with practices of viewing. This was important in reasserting the sense of human agency in our relationship to images in a world where this appears to be increasingly absent