Event 1 Kathy High "Waste Matters: You are my future"

For me, Kathy High's "Waste Matters: You are my future" was an odd experience that left me feeling slightly alienated and a little sick. Her exhibit focused on the medical benifits of a procedure called a fecal transplanting which has been used to treat an intestinal disease called Clostridium difficile, and could be become even more useful in the future (possibly for treating her own case of Chron's disease) as the procedure as it is still a relatively new one and not completely understood. The idea is that there are certain beneficial microbes from a healthy person's intestine, contained in their stool, which could be beneficial to people with certain deficiencies in those microbes (usually a result of antibiotics).

A Photo of Kathy High Impersonating David Bowie on his Album Aladdin Sane

What High does in this exhibit however is display fecal matter suspended in honey in feces shaped jars in the center of the room, while also showing photos of herself imitating David Bowie and lecturing on the benefits of this new procedure. I believe the idea of showing us the poop is to desensitize us or alter our perspective on what most see as toxic waste so that we might be more inclined to accept this new procedure (and possibly related others) as beneficial. The David Bowie references might be a tribute to the way he changed people's views on gay and transgender people, and thus validation of her purpose of changing peoples mind on poop.

Fecal Matter Suspended in Honey

The problem with this exhibit is that she is trying to alter our perspectives on poop so we might think of it as beneficial, but poop is gross, hands down, it's literally toxic waste, and I don't need or want to change that view to realize the beneficial aspects of it. Just because it's gross medicine doesn't make it bad medicine, and I think that very few people would disagree, despite what High thinks. The scientists in the video she showed even admitted they find the procedure gross and wouldn't talk about it around the dinner table. Coincidentally as I watched that part of the video someone was bringing out appetizers. In the end I felt physically unconfortable and a little off put by how other students seemed so interested in this art exhibit.  
 

Another Art Piece Designed to Desensitize?