year: 1996

Backbone

Video installation in "Wunschmaschine Welterfindung" at at the Kunsthalle Vienna, 1996

The installation is based on image data from the body of Joseph Paul Jernigan. Sentenced to death he died at age 39 in the Huntsville Prison in Texas. In the Health and Science Center at the University of Colorado in Denver his corpse was cut into slices, from foot to head, each one millimeter thick using a laser-controlled cryomacrotome. Color photographs were made of the remaining cadaver as each slice was removed.
In the installation, more than 1800 slice images are exhibited along a longitudinal axis about 7 meters long. As the screen moves above the exhibition, the image plane traces the virtual body of Jernigan in the air.

Programming: Sven Thoene
Hardware: Werner Raczkoevi and Herman Gruber