University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Medical Museum

Diagnostik

Diagnostik: Blurring the Line Between the Diagrammatic and Emotive Installation.

Scherting: The projective nature of the Rorschach is intriguing. There is something of this quality in the desire to "fill in" the stories in the logbook entries, or in responding to the artworks.

Perret: The log entries and some of the artifacts on display offer an opportunity to indulge this tendency. I hope, however, that people will empathize rather than project.

In my mind, the difference is that projection is one-sided and tends to misrepresent or confuse the real nature of the subject. For instance, a child falls off a bicycle and threatened to punish the object, "Bad bicycle!"

Empathy is more like a conversation. It implies a receptive, open relationship. You bring experience with you but also respond to what is being communicated. Empathy is not passive, it requires participation.

Scherting: Institutions also project. Science museums, all museum, possess an institutional authority. Often thought to present only established "fact," there is just as much room for interpretation on most subjects at a science museum as at an art museum. We were aware that in situating our exhibit in this space, much of our potential audience would have similar expectations.

Perret: The inclusion of many different perspectives on a subject helps to blur the line between that which is presented and that to which the viewers must bring their own convictions.

Scherting: The objects in the installation - medical instruments and devices - are displayed with literary excerpts that contrast their capacity to benefit or harm. For instance, we chose two literary quotes, two voices to accompany a 19th-century straightjacket that is from the Medical Museum's collection. One quote compares the experience of wearing a straightjacket with an embrace from God, steadying, stabilizing, and the other describes the straightjacket as a sweaty coffin. The viewer is offered two dramatically different experiential descriptions to consider while gazing upon the object.

Two distinct encounters with a "Utica" 14 crib-restraining device can be read alongside a full-size reproduction of the crib. A patient who slept in the device for several days commented that he had rested better and found it used for "all crazy fellows as I, whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is weak." 15

Taking a less enthusiastic view, Daniel Tuke, a noted British alienist (an early term for psychology expert) wrote that, "it inevitably suggests, when occupied, that you are looking at an animal in a cage. At the celebrated Utica Asylum, Dr. Baker, of the York Retreat allowed himself to be shut up in one of these beds, but preferred not remaining there." 16

Perret: Emily Dickinson once reflected, "Assent, and you are sane; Demuro, you're straightway dangerous; And handled with a chain." 17

Some of the objects are accompanied by poems. Theodore Roethke wrote about his hydrotherapy treatments at a sanitorium: "Six hours a day I lay me down, Within this tub but cannot drown. The ice cap at my rigid neck, Has served to keep me with the quick." 18

A poem by Jane Kenyon, titled "Bottles," is beside an antique pharmaceutical bag. She lists various medications used for depression (Ludiomil, Doxepin, Prozac) and notes that "The coated ones smell sweet or have no smell; the powdery ones smell like the chemistry lab at school that made me hold my breath." 19

Scherting: Let's talk more about how the objects are incorporated into the exhibition. I think it is interesting that many artifacts that become the basis of a collection of this kind have no intrinsic value of their own. Hundreds or thousands of medical instruments and devices that are routinely recycled for scrap metal or otherwise discarded all the time. The objects become valuable only when in a museum collection, through the process of selection, acquisition, cataloguing and storage.

Within the exhibition context, these same objects become the "actors." To borrow from Shakespeare, "all museum are a stage, and the artifacts merely players; they have their entrances and their exits, and one artifact in its time plays many parts." 20 All of these objects have previously been on display in exhibits developed by the Medical Museum. We, however, have added a more dramatic twist.

For instance, the replica of the Utica crib is filled with candy. An embroidered pillow in the crib asks, "Who would not cherish dreams so sweet though grief and pain may come tomorrow"? (William Wordsworth) Visitors are invited to reach through the wooden "bars" to take candy off the mattress and place it on a scale to indicate what kind of dreams they had the night before, sweet or sour.

We didn't know how people would respond to this participatory activity, whether they would be willing to reach into the crib, interact with the objects and register a "vote." Perhaps visitors would simply take the candies and leave. As it turns out, this exhibit element has received a lot of interaction, and the scales have to be cleared often.

Perret: Of course the original idea for that installation and several others had to be modified to accommodate the location of the Medical Museum. Let's talk a bit about that before we move on. I felt that many of our ideas were somewhat compromised by the demands of this type of exhibition space.

Scherting: There were several challenges in this respect. The original idea for the Utica crib installation was to fill the bed with sugar cubes, not wrapped candy. Sugar cubes at once communicate sweetness, but also have a minimalist, sculptural quality. Moreover, sugar cubes were often used to administer liquid medicines. The sugar would absorb the liquid and conceal any unpleasant taste. But the use of unwrapped food of any kind was not possible. The museum is located in a hospital, and hospitals often have insect problems that must be carefully controlled. Sealing the cubes with polyurethane would change the material. With a subtler sealant there was the possibility that someone (especially a child) might ingest the adulterated cube. The idea of individually wrapping hundreds of sugar cubes seemed ineffectual, and inauthentic. So we decided to use wrapped candies.

Another issue was that the artifacts had to be presented in cases and vitrines. This was not always the most visually effective way to present the object. For instance, there is an 19th-century straightjacket in the exhibition. The original idea was to suspend the jacket from the ceiling so that it would appear to be hovering in the space just slightly above an average eye level of 5-to 5-6, such that the viewer could walk completely around it. A poem about madness was to be written in blue sand on the floor beneath the jacket.

As installation time approached, it became clear that Museum administrators would require the straightjacket to be under Plexiglas if it were to be exhibited. The exhibition space is only protected by camera surveillance, which provides only a moderate deterrent to theft or vandalism, and the director felt the temptation to touch the jacket would be too great under these circumstances. The Museum had a plinth and vitrine that we modified to exhibit the straightjacket. I constructed an armature to suspend the jacket within the vitrine over a base filled with blue sand. Floating over the sand and beneath the straightjacket is a poem about madness spelled out in a spiral form on plate glass. A blue spotlight shines on the straightjacket. This is simply one of the realities of working in a public space at isn't regularly occupied by a security guard.

Perret: This was an acceptable compromise, but I feel the original idea would have had a more immediate impact upon the viewer - by having one less barrier between the viewer and the object.

Scherting: This was the best solution we could arrive at. Several other exhibits that contained original artworks and objects were also adversely effected by having to impose this protective barrier to insure the safety of the objects on display. The drawings that are exhibited in the cases with medical instruments, the electroconvulsive therapy equipment and the light box with crushed aspirin dust would all have had more impact without the Plexiglas vitrines.

Perret: This might be a good time to discuss the production of the objects and your critical role there. Research into materials and methods can take as much effort as developing an image. It becomes an essential aspect of the work. Especially in terms of the more conceptual artwork.

Scherting: Conceptual artist Sol Lewitt said that the idea is the engine that creates that artwork.21 In other words, the idea is primary and production perfunctory. Lewitt, of course, was talking about his own work, the production of which he almost exclusively out-sourced, and he was comparing his method to that of a traditional artist who might specialize in the mastery of specific media (like printmaking or stone sculpture.) Even so, I disagree with his basic premise. Production is as important as the idea. Different media or modes of production demand various kinds of attention and response. Sometimes this consists of researching businesses and supervising a commercial service. Other times this means hand-built construction.

When I make a light box or table to present one of your images or commission an element form a Plexiglas-manufacturer or cabinetmaker, I am having a tremendous impact on the finished work. I am making decisions, and my design of the light box, or mount, affects the aesthetics and communicative value of the artwork.

Perret: So in review, do you think the exhibition is successful?

Scherting: As we discussed, the objects, subject matter, type of venue ad physical exhibition space all presented challenges. There is a comments book and response form in the space. So far most of the comments have been positive, and the respondents include a psychiatric nurse, a patient, a cardiologist, a hospital visitor, an art faculty member and a former museum president. That is gratifying, that individuals representing the full range of audience for this venue have taken the time to express their reactions. While there are modifications we might make in the presentation should this be exhibited again in an art gallery or more secure space, overall, I think the exhibition is effective, both as an art installation and as a means to educate and provoke contemplation.

Where do you see the project going next?

Perret: Well, as you know, we plan to expand the exhibition. I am already working in related research, and we have been discussing how to best articulate some of these ideas. In particular, there was a piece I was not able to complete in time for this version of the exhibition. It deals with the story of Elizabeth Ware Packard and her struggle to free herself from a rural Illinois insane asylum in the mid-19th century. Packard was committed by her husband, s strict Calvinist minister, for openly differing with him on religious matters. There are many interesting details in the story that have visual and conceptual promise. Would also like to work more directly with some of the local historical sites and museum associated with the State asylums and their materials and collections and explore these further.

Notes:
Dickinson, Emily, (1830-86). "LXIX, Part Four: Time and Eternity," from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1924.

Iowa State Psychopathic Hospital, Outpatient and Admissions Records. Iowa City, IA: Collection of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Medical Museum, 1921-1927.

Hebrehrenia is an early term for schizophrenia, cited in Drapkin, Adrienne, Paul Foth, Carla Herling, and Christine Wolf. Order and Disorder, Exhibition Catalog. Iowa City: University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Medical Museum, 1995.

Huston, Paul E., MD The Iowa State Psychopathic Hospital. Iowa City and Des Moines, IA: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1973.

Woods, Andrew H., MD Mental Hygiene, Underlying Principles, unpublished manuscript copy, N.D., c. 1930.

Hillyer, Jane. Reluctantly Told. New York: MacMillan, 1935.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin Books, 1979.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.

Pinney, Christopher. "Other People's Bodies, Lives and Histories." Journal of Museum Ethnography. Museum Ethnographers Group: Hull, England, 1989.

"It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation... I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate," C.G. Jung. Mandala Symbolism, translated by R.F.C. Hull, 1973.

Exner, John E. The Rorschach: A Comprehensive System. New York: Wiley, 1993. Also EncyclopediaBritannica.com Inc. © 1999-2000.

Projective Tests require an individual to respond to indistinct stimuli. The individual's interpretation about the stimuli is meant to reveal aspects of his/her personality. The Rorschach, which has individualsdescribe various ambiguous inkblot pictures is a classic example. Others include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), in which the subject must respond to 550 affirmative phrases as "True, False or Cannot say," and the Thenatic Apperception Text (TAT) which presents ambiguous, figurative pictures about which the subject is asked to make up a story.

The Utica crib is a slatted restraining bed with a locking cage-like top that resembles a child's crib. Named for the now defunct New York Insane Asylum at Utica, New York, where it was used extensively in the late 19th century, the device is actually based on a French design. Gamwell, Lynn and Nancy Tomes. Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness before 1914. Binghamton, New York: State University of New York, 1955.

Journal of Insanity. October 1846.

Wood, Mary Elene. The Writing on the Wall: Women's Autobiography and the Asylum. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Roethke, Theodore. The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press,1975.

Kenyon, Jane. Otherwise: New and Selected Poems. Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1996.

Ernst, Wolfgang. "Archi(ve) Textures of Museology." From Crane, Susan A. Museums and Memory. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Godfrey, Tony. Conceptual Art. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1998.