At the core of the installation of the Berlin artists is Thomas Mann’s novella entitled Transposed Heads (Die vertauschten Köpfe).
The installation comprises two videos screened simultaneously, six photographic panels and instruments of neurosurgery.
Neurologist, psychologist and philosopher Hinderk Emrich dissects Thomas Mann’s essay on one side of the double projection screen that stands in the centre of the exhibition space. On the opposite side of the screen, we can observe the lecture of Prof. Dr. Robert White, neurosurgeon, who, in connection with the head transplant of a monkey that he carried out in the eighties, speaks about the technical execution of head transplants.
The aesthetic universe of the Transposed Bodies photographic novella, composed of six tableaux, reminds one of Chris Marker’s photographic novel La Jetée, as well as the conceptual love stories of the French Nouvelle Vague.
The story of the present photographic novella is told by the two friends Jan and Jon, who are jealous of each other’s physical and mental capacities. Their love for Marie and their lovelorn grief plunges them into an accident, in which they both lose their heads. Thus they are subjected to undergoing a serious medical experiment. This love story, beyond Thomas Mann’s novella, deals with topical genetic and neuro-biochemical procedures and the problem of human identity.
