Diagnostics (2017) is a data collage workshop model developed by the Body Recovery Unit created with Loes Bogers with the support of the Visual Methodologies Collective toolkit. The project started as an experiment in finding out how online databases see and organise the reproductive body. By analysing 6000+ images captured from Twitter shared around pregnancy, we used a series of tools to uncover the themes underlying online visual cultures. The film is composed of the found images which has been cut into pieces, and reassembled in new ways responding to the six themes occurring in the data set such as; beauty, capitalism, porn, advice, family types, expecting.
The film was exhibited in the installation Data Therapy [healing required] at Neotopia: Data & Humanity, Art Centre Nabi (Oct 2017-Jan 2018).
The methodology to scrape websites for images, cut them up and create new ones as a way to learn about how bodies are seen and organised by online database was explored in a series data collage workshops such as The Big Data Cut-Up at FabFest London, Create Your Own Queer Sticker Pack at Oxytocin art and maternity conference, and Throwback Stickerpack at Late Tate Britain.
