Media@McGill, in collaboration with and , presents:
M a t t e r s o f t h e H e a r t
A screening of films by Austrian artist Christina Lammer, conducted in collaboration with surgeon Wilfried Wisser
The screening is followed by a discussion with Prof. Thomas Schlich (Social Studies of Medicine) and Prof. Mary Hunter (Art History)
Tuesday, 22 May 2018, 16:30-18:30
㽶Ƶ, Arts W-215, 853 Sherbrooke Street West
In this presentation with surgeon Wilfried Wisser, Austrian artist Christina Lammer discusses the video and 16mm film footage she produced in operating rooms at the Medical University Vienna (MUV). She focuses on her fascination with what Visual Studies Professor Lisa Cartwright has called “clinical intimacy.” Matters of the Heart compares the gestures of surgeons in various surgical fields (including but not limited to Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology and Heart Surgery), and explores empathy in the clinical context. With her visual ethnographic work inside the operating theatre, Lammer’s camera aims at unveiling sensations, intimacy and pathos in the world of surgery.
Biographies of invited presenters:
Christina Lammer is a research sociologist, collaborative artist and filmmaker based in Vienna, Austria. Her work combines sensory ethnography with video, performance and body art in hospitals and clinics to focus on embodied emotion and sensory interaction between patients and physicians during the course of medical treatment. In Performing Surgery (2015-2018), Lammer collaborates with surgeons and examines their gestures. In Features: Vienna Face Project (2009-2014), she investigated the place of portraiture and the aesthetics of the smile in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery. Surgical Wrappings (2009-2014) explored the material culture of surgery. Works in the series CORPOrealities (2004-2009) considered empathy, somatic perception, and the role of touch and the hands in the use of techniques such as image-guided vascular surgery at the Medical University Vienna (MUV). Her most recent books are Moving Faces (Vienna, Löcker Verlag, 2015); Anatomy Lessons (edited with Artur Zmijewski: Vienna, Löcker Verlag, 2013); Empathography (Vienna, Löcker Verlag, 2012) and CORPOrealities (Vienna, Löcker Verlag, 2010). Lammer holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Vienna. .
Wilfried Wisser, MD, is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Staff Surgeon in the Dept. of Cardiac Surgery at the Medical University, Vienna. He has held visiting fellowships at Toronto General Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine, and in hospitals in Bad Neustadt and Paris. Prof. Wisser was a core collaborator on Christina Lammer’s Matters of the Heart project, granting her access to the operating theatre to film his cardiac surgeries.