JOHN A DOUGLASCIRCLES OF FIRE

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JOHN A DOUGLASCIRCLES OF FIRE

“John A Douglas was the recipient of a donor kidney around the time of the Easter holidays in April 2014. It was less than twelve months after we had presented his Body Fluid II: Redux at Performance Space as part of the International Symposium of Electronic Arts. Back at that time, Douglas was musing with a fellow artist about the possibility of documenting the kidney transplant process, if it should chance to happen to him.

But the scheduling of organ transplantation is subject only to the randomness of human accidents. It is heedless of any aesthetic or conceptual plans. It comes in a rush and it requires total compliance.

As for the aftershocks of this life-extending surgery on the body, and the transformation of the physiological make-up of the transplant recipient – this is the subject of Circles of Fire, John A Douglas’ video cycle. First presented in The Patient at UNSW Galleries in June 2016, in this work Douglas has mapped a psychological geography of the patient subject, as a parallel world of existence in which he cycles between places of healing, regimentation and suffering.”Bec Dean, Curator, October 2016

”This work is the third instalment in a trilogy of works (beginning in 2012 with Body Fluid) that reveal to audiences my own lived experience with chronic illness and treatment. In a sense, from the moment that I received the call from the hospital in April 2014 that a kidney was available, the project Circles of Fire began. Had I not received the call it is highly unlikely I would have survived another year on life support. My death that I was rapidly approaching was therefore postponed. I remember very little of the surgery and was informed sometime later that I had lost vital signs during the six hour procedure. Family members waited anxiously in the intensive care unit at the hospital not knowing whether I would survive. What I do remember is that it felt like I had passed through a circle of fire and I would never be the same again. Ironically in order to postpone my own death I had to confront death itself. Organ transplantation is an extremely risky business and there are no guarantees of survival. In some ways the risks and challenges of the transplant experience parallel the process of making this autobiographical work.”

For many organ recipients a lifetime of immuno-suppressant drugs, a disrupted sense of identity and the reality of living with a medically altered hybrid body, present a far more challenging and complex set of circumstances far beyond the expectations of the patient. For Douglas the challenges he and many transplant patients experience is a double-edged sword fraught with many obstacles that need to be overcome in order for the transplant to succeed and maintain to a healthy body and mind. It is as French philosopher and heart transplant recipient Jean Luc Nancy stated the receiving of a dead stranger(l’intrus), where Cartesian medical science triumphantly holds mastery over life and death and the patient is no longer quite clear of who they are. The transplant recipient, altered with the DNA and living tissue of an unknown person, loses ones sense of self – the I or me – simultaneaously becomes the other. This fractured and altered identity is further complicated by a supressed immune system from a lifetime of potentially lethal neurotoxic immuno-supression drugs. The body no longer wholly belongs to the self as it becomes a product of 21st century bio-medical technology- a hybrid post-human body that lives in a constant state of deferment of ones death .

Nancy, Jean Luc, L’Intrus, Michigan State University Press, 2002.CHALK HORSE

LOWER GROUND 171 WILLIAM STREET, DARLINGHURST SYDNEY NSW 2O1O AUSTRALIA PHONE +612 938O 8413

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Circles of Fire (Variations) is an attempt to make visible my lived experience as a recipient. These collaborative video performance sequences, shot on location in the Karakum desert Turkmenistan, the sacred site, Kliluk, a medicine lake and it’s surrounding mountainous landscapes in Canada, in the studio and the laboratory, are loosely based on the structural narrative template from Dante’s Inferno. Circles of Fire(Variations) takes the viewer though nine operatic cycles each based on the physical and emotional challenges that the patient must comply to from the moment of the call through to the triumph of maintaining wellness.

1. Lost (Similkameen) - The Call 2. Nessun Dorma - Surgery 3. The Gift – Organ graft4. Placing the Scarab – Immuno-supression 5. The Liminal Struggle – ICU6. Healing (Kliluk) – ICU7. Hybrid Journey(Izmukshir) - Recovery begins8. Testing the Body – Compliance9. Boot Camp (Nisa)- Compliance

John A Douglas October, 2016.

Gates of Hell (Karakum) - Entering Surgery

CHALK HORSELOWER GROUND 171 WILLIAM STREET, DARLINGHURST SYDNEY NSW 2O1O AUSTRALIA PHONE +612 938O 8413

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FORMATS:

VERSION 1Circles of Fire (Variations)2017

Two channel sychronsied HD 1080p video with sound

Edition 1/3

VERSION 2Circles of Fire (Variations) 2017

Two channel sychronsied UHD 2160p video with sound

Edition 1/3

CHALK HORSELOWER GROUND 171 WILLIAM STREET, DARLINGHURST SYDNEY NSW 2O1O AUSTRALIA PHONE +612 938O 8413

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ACKNOWLEGEMENTS:

Principal Artist: John A DouglasAssociate Producer: Bec Dean

Performers: John A Douglas with Celeste Aldahn, Stella Topaz, Yiorgos ZafariouPerformance Director: Sue HealeyVideography: John A Douglas, Dara GillAriel Videography: Rubicon Cinema (BC, Canada)Lighting: John A Douglas, Martin Fox, Mark MitchellEditing, Compositing and Colour Grading: John A DouglasSoundtrack: Justin Ashworth and Glam Cyborg (Celeste Aldahn, Freya Adele)Arrangements, Sound Design and Mixing: Justin Ashworth and John A DouglasCostume Design and Production: Michele Elliot, Yiorgos Zafiriou, John A DouglasLED Costume design production and rigging: Alejandro RolandiProps Design and Production: John A Douglas, Nadege Desgenetez (glass objects) and Yiorgos Zafiriou

On Location Production Management and camera operator: Melanie J Ryan

Special Thanks to:First Nation Okanagan custodian of Spotted Lake(Kliluk), Alex Louis (Senklip Skalwx) for permission to perform and shoot at Spotted Lake, BC, Canada.Artik Gubaev and Batyr Nitazov for clearance and transport in Turkmenistan. Dr Stuart Hodgetts, Assoc Prof Silvana Gaudieri, Guy Ben-Ary and Celeste Wale for assistance with the artist’s T-cell experiments and microscopy and Symbiotica Lab, UWA. Ingrid Bachmann, Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, CanadaAndrew Carnie, Winchester School of Art, Southhampton University, UK

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of The School of Art, ANU Canberrra, ACT, School of Media Arts, UNSW and The Bundanon Trust.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.