Introductory description

The ‘Skin, Stories, and SFX: Performance and Medicine’ module is open to all third-year students across the university regardless of disciplinary background. The module is designed to develop students’ understanding of the ever-expanding field of Skin Studies in the 20th and 21st century, but it does so by locating the skin, and our sense of touch, within the broader field of Performance and Medicine. Across two terms, this module will support students to read the skin and our sense of touch through a series of different approaches including Skin Studies, Dermatology, Psychoanalysis, and Physics which lend themselves to Performance and Medicine approaches. It encourages students to engage with the skin, and representations of the skin, across a range of different visual, literary, performance, and material sources which include haptic soundboards, digital microscopes, and skin-based special effects makeup (SFX) for the way they engage different aspects of medicine. It asks students to interrogate the skin in different social, historical, educational, and political contexts as well as to consider themes including, but not limited to, gender, sexuality, race, cosmetics, policy and public health. This module will help build students’ confidence to read the skin using different theoretical lenses and approaches across four units: Unit 1: Skin Studies, Unit 2: Skin and Disease, Unit 3: Skin and Cosmetics, Unit 4: Performance and Medicine and Unit 5: Performance Art and Special Effects. The module focuses on performance analysis, theory, and on reading the skin in both performance and medical contexts, but it also offers students the opportunity to experiment with putting their critical analysis skills into practice.

Module advisories: For students considering taking this module, please be advised that the module will tackle sensitive topics including self-injury and other themes around medicine, race, and representation that some may find difficult. The module also includes material -- such as performance artworks and plays -- which show self-injury and representations of self injuries on the skin. We will work together in week 1 to decide how we will engage with sensitive material as a class and all students are welcome to discuss any specific concerns with me in advance.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline to give an indication of the topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held and materials studied may differ from the outline below.

Unit 1: Skin and Skin Studies

Week 1: Skin Studies
This week will introduce students to the skin, and our sense of touch, via an exploration of its properties and structure. It will introduce students to the field of Skin Studies which draws on literary, visual, and performance sources and considers the skin in its broader social, cultural, political, historical, medical etc., context. Students will use dermatological diagrams of the skin to animate the skin’s structure.

Explore:

Marc Lafrance “Skin Studies: Past, Present and Future” (2018)
Monty Lyman, Chapter 1 “The Swiss Army Organ: The many layers and lives of our skin” in The Remarkable Life of the Skin: An intimate journey across our surface (2020)

Week 2: Psychoanalysis

Didier Anzieu’s ‘The Skin Ego’ & American Horror Story “Asylum” Series

Week 3: Dermatology
In this session, we will look at stories from dermatologists, alongside stories about skin. The first half of this session will look at skin colour from a dermatological perspective, as well as thinking through the implications of the under-representation of skin of colour in dermatological practices. The second half of the session will read Hopkinson’s creative work on skin, stories, and skin colour before asking students to reflect on their own skin-based narratives. This session will invite creative responses to the skin and stories ahead of our guest session next week which will use microscopes to “other world” the skin.

Read: Neil Singh’s “Decolonising Dermatology”
Robert Norman, Chapter 5 “The Blue Man,” The Blue Man and Other Stories of the Skin.

Week 4: Microbiology
This will be a guest session with a Consultant Dermatologist, University of Warwick Hospital (TBC) in which students will explore the skin under digital microscopes. They will learn about the skin’s flora and fauna, as well as its properties, through a guided tour of the skin and experiments which show how the skin functions.
Mary J. Marples “Life on the Human Skin” (1969), Scientific American 220.1. pp. 108-115.
W.H. Auden’s “New Year’s Greeting” (1969) in W.H. Auden Collected Poems (1994

Unit 2: Skin and Disease

Week 5: Contagion
This week’s session will explore the relationship between the skin and structures of feeling via performance works which engage the skin. It will explore how touch relates to feeling and the impacts losing touch can have.

Dante or Die’s: ‘Skin Hunger’

David J. Linden, Chapter 3, “The Anatomy of a Caress” in Touch: The Science of the Sense that Makes us Human (2016)
Varlamov, Andreī Andreevich, Galina Portnova, and Francis McGlone. “The C-Tactile System and the Neurobiological Mechanisms of “Affective” Tactile Perception: The History of Discoveries and the Current State of Research.”Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology 50 (2020):418-427. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-020-00916-z

Week 7: Conditions

Maria Fusco’s work ‘ECZEMA!’
Chapter 9 ‘Itch’ in Steven Connor’s The Book of Skin (2004)

Unit 3: Skin and Cosmetics

Week 8: Pharmaceuticals
This session will invite students to explore the development of dermatology alongside the development of cosmetic products. It will shed light on the racialised histories of the development of products such as Retinol via experiments on the skin of incarcerated African Americans during the Vietnam War.

Baz Luhrman’s ‘Wear Sunscreen.’
Chapter 1 in Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu's 'Experiments in the Skin: Race and Beauty in the Shadow of Vietnam' (2021)

Week 9: Cosmetic Surgery
This week will explore cosmetic surgery in relation to psychoanalytic ideas of self, gender, and the boundaries of skin. Materials considered may include:

ContraPoints’ video “Beauty” (2019), YouTube.
ORLAN’S ‘Carnal Art’
Rachel Alpha Johnson Hurst’s “The Skin-Textile in Cosmetic Surgery” in: Cavanagh, S.L., Failler, A., Hurst, R.A.J. (eds) Skin, Culture and Psychoanalysis. (2013)

Term 2:

Week 1: Skinposium: Research Presentations
Assessment 1 is an individual ‘Research Presentation.’ Students are invited to present a 10-minute presentation on an aspect of ‘Skin Studies.’ This might take the form of a reading of an independently chosen source using a theoretical lens covered in Term 1. It might take the form of a piece of independent research into a particular skin-based practice, function, or news item. The aim is to deliver a research presentation which makes an argument about how we can read the skin.

Unit 4: Performance and Medicine
While Term 1’s focus is the subject and study of the skin, Term 2 moves to consider the skin and sense of touch in the broader contexts of both Performance and Medicine. It aims to introduce students to the significance of the skin, representations of skin, and the sense of touch in actor training, educational plays, accessible performance, and in an educational and training contexts for medical professionals.

Week 2: Touch and Consultation

Watch: Alex Mermikides’ Careful (2016-2019) and explore: https://alexmermikides.com/careful
https://thepolyphony.org/2021/06/22/trusting-touch-during-covid-19/

Singh, Carter and Drew Leder. “Touch in the consultation.” British Journal of General Practice 62, no 596 (2012):147-148. doi:10.3399/bjgp12X630133

Week 3: Haptics and Accessibility

Haptic Soundboard Workshop (Physics)

This workshop will introduce students to the concept of haptic touch and the potential role of haptic soundboards in increasing accessibility. Through a practical workshop using our haptic soundboards over in Physics, students will learn how haptics work and get the chance to explore the technology for themselves. Students will likely want to connect the technology used in this workshop with the technology that was harnessed in ‘ECZEMA!’ to convert the tactile nature of scratching into sound work.

Lynette Jones, Chapter 3 “Haptic Perception” in Haptics (2018).

Week 4: Self-injury and Education
This week will pick up on the themes of Week 2 around consultation practices but this time with reference to the role of user-expert, alongside the consultation of medical experts, in developing plays which deal with the topic of self-harm. It will think through the visual politics of the choice to represent/not represent self-harm in plays. Students will read the play ‘Hidden’ but will also be introduced to Sharon LeFevre in class as a point of comparison for the way she used her user-experience of self-injury and showed them her self-injury scars as part of a play ‘On the Edge of a Dilemna’, to educate medical professionals about self-injury.

Sarah Chaney, Chapter 7 “Trigger Happy: Culture, Contagion and Trauma in the Internet Age” in Psyche on the Skin: A History of Self-Harm (2019)
Nina Lemon’s play ‘Hidden’ (2020)

Unit 5: Performance Art and Special Effects (SFX)

Week 5: Self-Injury and Medicine in Performance Art
Following on from Week 4, which will have briefly introduced students to Sharon LeFevre’s play which aimed to educate medical professionals about self-injury by showing them her real self-injury scars, this week will look at acts of self-injury in performance art. Students will be given a case study for the ways in which the artist uses acts of self-injury to raise awareness of medical conditions and concerns. We will think together about what it means to witness acts of self-injury within performance art contexts and how such acts might gesture towards broader medical practices and/or bio-ethical concerns.

Works studied may include Kira O’Reilly’s works for the way they engage historical medical practices and bio-ethical concerns; Alice Vogler’s durational work Liability of body. Language of liability (2014) in which she injects insulin as part of the work, and through which thinks through questions of legislation and waivers in relation to her diabetes. Works referenced may also include Martin O’Brien’s and Ron Athey’s.

Critical Reading: Gianna Bouchard (2012) Skin Deep: Female Flesh in UK Live Art since 1999, Contemporary Theatre Review, 22:1, 94-105, DOI: 10.1080/10486801.2011.645230

Week 7: Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine and SFX
This week both engages the performance and medicine concerns of Week 4 and 5 by thinking through both how performance is used in a medical context for educational purposes, but also by thinking through the representation of wounds practically. This workshop introduces students to the theatrical elements (including scripting, scenario, scene/setting/staging/characters/wound-simulation/props) which underpin professional educational training. There is a specific focus on the role of the moulage and casualty simulation teams in setting up events such as the Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine conference at Warwick Medical School. Students will be taught some basic wound simulation effects.

Week 8: SFX Workshop II
Building on the material from the previous week, students will learn to create more sophisticated wound simulations. We will continue to think through the effects that realistic SFX might have on patient care and diagnostic outcomes.

Week 9: Working on Creative Responses

Term 3:

Week 3: Creative Responses Assessment
Assessment 2 invites students to devise a creative response to an idea or theme covered in the module. The responses might take the form of performance art, an educational pack or programme, an intervention into a social or political issue, a Podcast on an aspect of skin/cosmetic industry issue that we have not explored on the course. The assessment is designed to spark student creativity and independent research. Note any Performance Art responses must not include any element of self-injury.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Students will be able to demonstrate that they have developed their critical capacity to evaluate Skin Studies discourse through a research presentation which evidences an effective process of gathering, discerning, synthesising, and evaluating relevant materials.
• Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the interplay between theoretical/critical perspectives and creative modes of enquiry in the field of Skin Studies by choosing appropriate materials to bring into dialogue for the assessed research presentation.
• Students will be able to demonstrate their critical analysis skills by constructing an argument about works which engage the skin, or our sense of touch, and suggesting the significance of this representation in the arts and culture more broadly, via the research presentation.
• Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of appropriate interdisciplinary elements of Performance, specifically how to apply knowledge, practices, and concepts from other disciplines – here the fields of Skin Studies and/or Medicine and Performance – in their independently devised creative responses.
• Students will be able to devise a creative and critical work which demonstrates their ability to identify, interpret, and respond to a relevant social, cultural, historical, or political context within Skin Studies or Medicine and Performance.
• Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to engage critically and comprehensively with the processes of Performance and production. For example, by investigating past works, students will be able to select an appropriate form and structure for their critical and creative response.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Research element

Students are required to carry out a level of independent research when preparing for the two assessments on the module.

Interdisciplinary

This module is interdisciplinary in both its content and delivery. It draws on expertise from Theatre and Performance Studies, specifically Medicine and Performance, and introduces students to the ever-expanding field of Skin Studies. It offers students the opportunity to practically engage with experts in dermatology, skin care, and to think through how other disciplines – such as Physics – can enable us to work with touch to improve accessibility. It is open to students across the University who will bring their own subject knowledge/approaches/thinking to the study of skin.

International

This module considers the skin using a range of different theoretical lenses. The module considers questions of touch and accessibility, for example, through our session on haptic sound. It is also acutely alive to questions of skin colour, racialized histories, and representation in dermatology and cosmetic pharmaceuticals. It is also an open invitation to students to consider the skin, skin-based practices, and performance beyond the Western context.

Subject specific skills

No subject specific skills defined for this module.

Transferable skills

• Analysis and decision making
• Cognitive ability
• Communication skills
• Creativity
• Performance skills
• Presentation skills
• Confidence
• Interdisciplinary awareness
• Critical thinking
• Independent research
• Interpersonal and communication skills
• Intrapersonal skills
• Problem solving
• Project planning and delivery
• Self-management
• Time management