Chava Cogan

Chava Cogan

SELF-IMAGE-ING

LOOKING WITHIN: AN EXPLORATION OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE INTERNAL BODY IN MEDICINE AND ART

My body hovers ghost-like in the space of the gallery. Using MRI images of myself obtained from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, this work affords the viewer an 'inside' look at my body while simultaneously deferring the possibility of ever attaining a holistic rendering that makes full sense of that body. This work questions our relationship with the digitized, flattened view of the internal body and whether exposure to this view can actually bring us any closer to 'knowing' the body or more fully knowing ourselves.