Science – Page 7 – Ian Gibbins

poetry & anatomy

Dealing with the body is a complex problem, raising a mass of emotional, scientific, artistic and social issues. While the modern study of anatomy adheres to the highest ethical standards, this has not always been the case.

The poems on this page examine different aspects of the history and practice of anatomy: Chiara, one of the first recorded dissections; Mary, the last of Burke and Hare‘s victims to be sent to the Edinburgh anatomists; and an introduction to a modern-day anatomy class. The video of The Boy with Two Bodies explores the social framework of 14th Century Florence, when a mother of conjoint twins could be held responsible for the parlous state of local politics and the economy.

Ian’s chapbook A Skeleton of Desire is a collection of poems that are based on the human body in various ways. Much of the imagery is derived from re-interpreting the original meanings of the latin names for body parts, diseases, and the environment they exist within.

Abbess Chiara, Montefalco, 1308

“… her body should be preserved on account of her holiness and because God took such pleasure in her body and heart … After vespers or thereabouts, the said … Click here for more.

the art & science of embodiment

As Professor of Anatomy for 20 years at Flinders University, Ian was privileged to access, explore and explain the intricacies of the human body. The study of human anatomy has a long and complex social history, some of it confronting, some controversial and some occasionally criminal. Even now, the ways we understand our feelings for our own body and those of others are full of mystery, notwithstanding the astounding advances made by modern neuroscience in this area.

For several years, Ian has been collaborating with artist, Catherine Truman, to document how we appreciate the body and communicate our representations of embodiment to others. Both the not absolute exhibition and The Microscope Project evolved from this collaboration. But Ian and Catherine also worked together on a series of studies, funded by Flinders University (2010) and the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT Synapse Residency, 2011), exploring the relationships between external and internal representations of anatomical knowledge, the teaching and learning environment, and roles of touch, movement, and the felt experience of the body.

translating the body – the choreography of representation in anatomy teaching, 2010

the filtered body – the uncertainties of embodiment, 2011

Understanding … Click here for more.

poetry & neuroscience

How do we communicate how we feel inside? Not just emotions, but our body sense, our pains, perhaps even the parts that are missing, or we never had…

Here are some of Ian’s poems that explore these issues:

from Lessons in Neuroscience

Lesson 1: Phantom Limb

The space between my hands.

Like whiskey-tongued fishermen, shore-bound by Force Ten gales, I dream
about the ones that got away: snapper, mulloway, ocean trout, hammerhead,
fins slicing the sea into sashimi, carpaccio, butterfly fillets, jettisoned,
spinning and flipping and floating far from any dimly recollected grasp.

The gaps between my fingers,

as if they were feathers, as if they should span the imbalance dividing
this updraught from that, this diminishing shadow from its source,
this invisible calculation defining lift and drag, streamlined flight and
unrecoverable freefall, from this total, irredeemable, loss of sensibility.

The space between my hands, the gaps between my fingers:

only now can I describe the shapes that fill my memory; only now can I
describe the holdfasts, the hefts, the weights, the locks and latches, the keys
misplaced forever; only now, can I describe, for you, a tattoo needle,
a wedding ring, collisions, inadequate light, unbidden, insufficient narcosis.

~ … Click here for more.

public lectures on art & science

Keynote: ‘Uncountable Cultures: Science, Art and the Limits of Knowing’ Australian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres Annual Conference, December 2021.

The Poetry of Science. Panel and performance. Quantum Words. Writing NSW, Callan Park, Sydney, November, 2018.

Narratives of Brain and Body. Workshop and performance. Vital Signs: The Healing Power of Story, Queensland Poetry Festival, Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Fortitude Valley, Queensland, August, 2018.

Remember the Future: The Simulating Brain. Lecture and discussion panel. SimTecT Conference, Adelaide, August, 2015.

The Microscope Project: Sensing the Unseen. Lecture with poetry. With Catherine Truman. Ausglass National Conference, Adelaide, February, 2015.

Reimagining Art-Science Collaborations. Lecture with video and poetry. Driving Forces Symposium, ANU School of Art, February, 2014.

Stilled Life: Seeing Faces and the Problem of Portraiture. Presentation at Portrayal and Identity Symposium, ANU School of Art and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, March, 2013.

Science as Culture. Discussion panel and poetry performance, Kumuwiki, Regional Arts Australia National Conference, Goolwa, October 2012.

A Feeling for the Image: Hands, Body and Visualisation of the Invisible. Seminar / poetry performance at Spectra Symposium, The Science and Art of Imaging, Canberra, October, 2012.

Rough Draft. Poetry performance … Click here for more.

not absolute: audio & video

Thoracic 2 includes some of the text and sound installation from the exhibition. The sounds were recorded by Catherine Truman in her workshop and in Ian’s laboratory.

Metal (you’ll be in trouble) is the audio from a section of one of the installation videos. The sounds include comments recorded accidentally during an anatomy class.

Ian made three video installations collectively called with your eyes closed for the exhibition. Here are some excerpts from them.

To see all Ian’s videos, click on the vimeo button.

‘Floribunda’

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Floribunda was an exhibition of drawings by Judy Morris and poems by Ian Gibbins at the Hahndorf Academy, Hahndorf, in 2015. As part of the exhibition, we produced a beautiful book containing full-colour reproductions of Judy’s drawings along with the complete sequence of poems. Find out more about the project here.