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mercifuldeaths · 6 years ago

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Vertigo: Chapter 2: Jacked Up

Vertigo: Chapter 2

Jacked Up

This fic is in progress.

Jim Mason x Reader

Warnings for this chapter: Graphic descriptions of drug use.

Summary: Jim’s very good at hiding his vices, except, that is, with Medina.

Notes: More exposition. I’m sorry guys but the drama is worth the wait. This is Jim’s story-Y/N is a component, but this is a story about Jim’s journey. Thank you all so much for the positive responses from Ch 1!

Word Count: 2.6k

Jim would see Y/N at the beach pretty regularly, not that he was looking for her. He couldn’t help that his room had a perfect view of the bay and whenever Medina was going for dawn patrol with her he would have his coffee outside, waiting for Sandy to be awakened by the other’s starting their day in the waves.

It seemed that Medina had finally had a friend, which made him exceedingly happy. Jim recalled the nights Medina would slip into his room and lay on the unmade bed asking why nobody liked her. He didn’t have an answer for her, or rather he did, but didn’t have the heart to tell her.

He couldn’t help but constantly be reminded of how much stronger she was. Of course, she was heartbroken that she didn’t have friends, but she did have the strength to not change herself for others’ approval. Jim couldn’t say the same for himself.

Coming in from his coffee- she wasn’t out there that day- he picked up his backpack and jacket.

“‘Dina,” he whispered, ear pressed to her door. He almost fell over when the door was ripped away from his face.

“Hey, we’re running late, let’s go,” she responded. She managed to smack him with her backpack as they snuck out the door, avoiding Sandy.It was a miracle that she even let him go to his classes.

The pair hopped into Jim’s car, a new Nissan SUV from Phil. A graduation gift his father had called it but Jim knew what it really was. It was a “Sorry we’ve been shitty parents and let you overdose, but here’s a material item that’ll make up for it” gift. Medina got a smaller Volkswagen beetle that she absolutely adored.

It had been three and a half years since his overdose. It really wasn’t even that bad, he thought. He had passed out at home, Sandy overreacted and he spent a night in the hospital. Then Phil proceeded to tell him that they wouldn’t be going to Paris and that he’ll do better.

Admittedly, it had been slightly better. With Sandy back on her meds she wasn’t as prone to mood swings and temper tantrums meaning Jim had slightly more freedom. It didn’t allow him to escape his responsibilities as ‘man of the house’ but things were almost manageable. Almost.

After everything, he had to be more careful. Withdrawal had been a nightmare but when his mind cleared he found that the memory was fuzzy. Turning back to booze, then weed, then pills, then coke, then everything at once, had been an easy decision. This time, though, he needed to be careful.

A few weeks into sobriety, his mother would inevitably forget about Jim’s problems, replacing herself as the center of attention in her mind, so hiding it from her had been a joke. “Oh, I’m just tired, mom. Long day at school,” he’d say as his eyes fluttered shut, laying on the couch with a comfortable blanket of haze clouding his thoughts. She ate that shit up.

His father was even easier. He had still moved out, but his relationship with Ava had ended a while back, now seeing some other redhead. He was never around, not that Jim wanted to see him anyway. But with him being a doctor, he had to make sure he was sober around the man. He’d recognize all the signs, especially knowing Jim was a user.

Medina. She was...complex. He had tried to hide it from her, he really did. She found out almost immediately and hadn’t said anything but he could see the pain in her eyes. The only response she gave was a “Be careful with that shit, Jim. You don’t know what you’re playing with,” bitten out on his way back to his room from the bathroom where he had just taken an oxy. All the warning he needed was written on her face every time she looked at him. He tried to ignore it, for his own sake.

It’s because of this that when she said, “Is it getting bad again? Please tell me,” while biting into an egg McMuffin on their way to campus that morning Jim almost crashed his shiny new car. She had begged to get breakfast on the way and he could never say no to his sister.

“What are you talking about, Medina?” he rolled down the window and looked out the windshield pretending to focus on the traffic in front of him.

“I know what you’re doing. I’m not stupid. But just tell me if it’s that bad again,” she tried to seem casual, sipping her iced coffee but it sounded a little too rehearsed.

“I’m fine. You don’t need to worry,” his teeth grit together. Turning into the parking lot of their university

“‘Cause I know when mom gets weird you get weird. I don’t think she’s taking her medicine again- since dad’s new girlfriend,” she hesitated not knowing what reaction Jim would have.

His fist slammed against the steering wheel, making Medina jump, spilling coffee on her corduroys. “I’m not ‘getting weird’ or whatever, okay?” he yelled. “Yeah, mom’s fucking crazy again, it’s whatever.” He pulled into a parking space a little too quickly and the car lurched.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” her voice was smaller than she wanted it to be.

Jim’s jaw was still tense, teeth clenched. He took a deep breath through his nose and rolled his eyes back. “I know you didn’t. I’m sorry for yelling,” he looked over to her and stuck his tongue out a little, the way that usually made her laugh.

She wasn’t laughing. “So it’s gonna be like that, then,” he leaned over and poked her in the ribs, right in the spot that tickled most.

“Jim, stop!” she shrieked, attempting to get away from his long arms. Her laughter bounced in the car. They both smiled.

“Now, go. I know you have ‘Adult Coloring’ or some bullshit,” he loved to make fun of her customized major, full of classes she was taking to one day do what she wanted most, travel and surf. It was a lot of photography, journalism, and some random classes for credits.

“It’s ‘portraiture’, I’ll have you know,” she called over he shoulder before closing the door. Through the open window, she smirked, “Have fun with your blocks or whatever you do.”

He let out a groan that turned into a laugh, “It was once!” he shouted to her back, walking to campus’ central. He had been trying to figure out the flow and perception of this one project he was working on, so yeah he brought out some Legos to visualize it. That’s architecture for you.

What she’ll never mention is that she distracted him and then proceed to spend the entire night on the living room floor trying to one-up each other's towers. Jim using what he had learned from four years of design and structural classes while Medina relied on ‘just staking them up until they fall.’ Her’s was taller by two blocks and she will never let it go.

Grabbing his backpack he decided to pull the small baggie of pills out and place them in an empty plastic cup, hidden under the seat. Out of sight, out of mind. He was almost off his last bender and held a small glimmer of hope that this would be the last time. The back of his mind was already itching for another fix, reminding him to be even more careful around Medina.

Planning for a long day in the library, still trying to find a topic for his senior thesis, he grabbed Medina’s unfinished iced coffee and headed into the beating sun with a brave face painted on.

No. No. No. He coughed up more bile, spilling from his throat into the toilet in front of him. It was disgusting, he knew, but he needed to rest his head on the seat of it, cool porcelain taming the heat that coursed through him. He dry heaved this time, causing the head-splitting migraine to reappear.

“Jim?” his mother knocked on the bathroom door. “Jimmy, are you okay?” The handle jiggled but it was locked.

“I’m fine, mom,” he breathed through his nose, trying to stare straight ahead to stop the room from spinning.

“I can hear you in there. Are you sick, honey?”

“Food poisoning. I’m fine.” Short words. Short sentences. The sound of his own voice making him want to smash his head on the tile, hopefully blacking out.

“Let me in,” she demanded. The thought of her being around him made him retch again, this time probably for the last time as there was nothing left to vomit up. But, from experience, he knew to sometimes just go along with Sandy rather than fighting. Especially when he was feeling like this, he had no fight left in him.

He crawled over to the door and managed to unlock it, Sandy not missing a beat and plowing into the room. “Jim!” She kneeled next to him and immediately put her hand over his sweaty forehead. Admittedly, her cool hand felt nice.

“It’s just food poisoning, mom. I’m fine,” he whispered and leaned into her- an instinct leftover from childhood. “Just need to sleep.” Chills wracked his body but sweat was clinging to every pore, the dark circles under his eyes almost red. His irises still shined a brilliant blue.

Sandy put her arm around him and helped to bring him to his feet. They shuffled into his room, his mother rambling about how California sushi can’t be trusted because so many of the people eat it, its mass produced.

Jim wished she would shut the fuck up.

He didn’t fully recognize how, but he was laying in his bed, tee shirt removed, blankets pushed off the mattress. In the fetal position, he slowly rocked himself willing the nausea away. He nearly lept out of his skin when Medina suddenly appeared, replacing Sandy.

“He likes to be alone when he’s sick,” Medina tried to reason to their mother, recalling when they were kids how Jim would always shy away from attention when he was sick, preferring to suffer in silence.

“He doesn’t like to be alone, he likes to be with you,” their mom spit out and turned on her heel, leaving Medina in the doorway holding a glass of water.

She made her way closer Jim, placing the glass on the nightstand. Perching on the side of the bed, she ran a hand through his sweat soaked hair, grimacing a little. He sighed under her touch and closed his eyes again.

“Thank you,” she whispered, mindful of his migraine. His eye cracked open and managed to convey his confusion. “I know what this is.”

“It’s food poisoning, that’s what it is. It’s that bullshit sushi we stopped for. Thanks for that,” he scoffed. She knew he didn’t mean any of it, that he was hurting. She could see his muscles twitch under his thin skin. They reminded her of springs, coiled and ready. His eyes screwed shut again and he nuzzled into her thigh. She could hear the small cries he was trying to hold back.

“We had the same thing for lunch, Jim. We split it,” she observed, letting him know his jig was up. She felt his head shake.

“Okay, then. It’s the stomach flu. Same thing, Jesus. Let it go,” he attempted to growl out but the intent wasn’t there. She held out the glass of water she had brought in and he was never more grateful for their twin telepathy ‘thing’. He managed to prop himself up and take a few slow sips. “Thank you,” he mumbled and handed the glass back to his sister, relishing the cool that washed down his throat.

Laying on his back he tried to stare ahead again, this time at the blank ceiling above him. He briefly thought about going outside to look up at the sky, but remembered that any sort of movement was practically impossible at the moment. His body ached as he had just run a marathon. Joints tight, frozen in place, he continued to lay on his back trying to regulate his breathing. 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out. He counted.

Medina continued to run her cool hands over his head and face. It only felt good because it was her. His other half, a strange extension of himself. Or probably he was the extension-Medina was already her own person. She didn’t need him anymore. His thoughts made him start rocking again, seeking any sort of primal comfort.

As if on cue, he felt the bed shift and she started to leave. Before she could, he managed to grab her wrist. “Don’t.” Only his lips moved. “Please.”

“I’ll be right back. I’m just getting more water,” she went to pull the blankets over him as the had shivers started despite his constant sweating. He nodded, content with her answer.

He thought that maybe he had finally started to drift off to sleep but was awakened by yelling. Sandy. At Medina, of course. Their shouts were muffled by the door and the fact that he couldn’t really think straight helped a bit, but his head still throbbed.

Sandy was going off about how Medina was always so judgemental towards her. Medina was snapping back with questions of why she wasn’t the ‘favorite’ twin. Sandy didn’t bother trying to hide it and plainly stated that she liked Jim better because he cared for her. Loved her. Medina started ranting about how this was just like last time. Last time, when things were Not Good. When Jim, the favorite, was Not Good. She suggested that maybe Sandy wasn’t that great of a mother if she didn’t love one of her children and couldn’t even manage to keep the one she liked from spiraling, practically killing himself.

Jim ground his teeth willing them to stop.

“This isn’t like last time for god’s sake,” Sandy screeched. “And it wasn’t my fault. Jim’s fine. Just like he was last time. It was a stupid mistake, once. He hasn’t touched that shit since, I’ll have you know,” she huffed. “Don’t make things worse than they are.”

Medina wasn’t about to out Jim. She was just trying to drop subtle enough hints that maybe Sandy would get the picture that things weren’t all that great.

Medina and Jim knew what was really going on in the other room. He was trying to detox from everything he had been taking in for the past few weeks. The two of them knew, and that’s the only thing that mattered.

Jim continued to hear them screaming from one thing to another. It was Sandy treating Jim like a husband, then it was how Phil was a bad father, then it was school, then Jim, then back to Phil, then Medina’s apathy, then back to Jim.

It always went back to Jim.

In a further attempt to block it out he rolled onto his side to his body’s dismay. Everything screamed in protest. When he opened his eyes he was greeted with the almost empty glass of water resting on the nightstand. His eyes narrowed in on the draw. Oh shit. Oh fuck.

To his horror and delight, he remembered the two small tablets he had pushed in the back of the drawer. For emergencies only, he told himself when he had placed them there. They went completely forgotten for so long he couldn’t even properly remember what they were. As if a puppet on a string, he propped himself up and opened the drawer, feeling the contents with long fingers. He felt the thin plastic and pulled the baggie out.

Directly depositing both of the pills on the back of his tongue, he used the last sip of water his sister had brought to swallow them. Shortly thereafter, he finally fell asleep.

Tags: @langdonsdemon @coloursunlimited @thecinderellaposts @michael-langdon-appreciation @langdonalien @tarkofetis @stupidocupido @katiekitty261

Special thanks to some ultimate babes: @michael-langdon-appreciation @thecinderellaposts @katiekitty261 You are all so amazing and keep me fed with only the best Jim content. Thank you <3

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pengiesama · 6 years ago

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Bibliotheca Cordis (Fic, Gen)

Title: Bibliotheca Cordis Series: Tales of Zestiria Pairing: Gen Characters: Michael, Maotelus

Summary: Maotelus shows Michael his collection of banned books, and in the progress, winds up provoking him into a years-long project to create a comprehensive atlas of the world.

(You know how writers get.)

Link: AO3

This was my entry for day one of the TOZ 4th Anniversary project, at @tozanniversary! Day three's prompt was “History is the architecture of our hearts”.

Check out the other fic and art entries here:

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When Maotelus offered to show him the hoard of secret treasure he’d amassed over the centuries, Michael didn’t really know what to expect. He’d only known the seraph for a little while, and it was somewhat difficult to imagine him seated atop a pile of gold coins and glimmering jewels. It seemed like a very boring way to pass the time, and a poor use of a hypothetical secret treasure room inside an ancient labyrinth. Still – even if Michael wasn’t sure what awaited him, the price of admission was a bag of curry buns, and that seemed like a bargain.

They wound through the darkened and befuddling halls of the Shrinechurch Labyrinth, Maotelus leading the way in a smaller version of his dragon form – barely larger than a housecat, and glowing bright in the dark of the maze. They came to a stop at a dead end. Maotelus breathed deep, and exhaled silver flame against the wall in front of him. The unassuming stone briefly blazed alight with his holy crest, then faded just as quickly – and revealed a door in its place. The heavy stone door groaned as it opened, and Michael just about died on the spot at the sight of the priceless treasures within.

Books. Books by the hundreds, maybe thousands. Rare books – books that had been banned by the church for spreading heresy – books that were thought lost to the ages.

“The Shrinechurch goes into fits every few decades over some new book or another,” Maotelus explained as Michael stumbled through the rows of shelves, as if he was a saint reeling under the weight of a recent revelation, or a man drunk. “They implement a ban, confiscate copies, and bring them here to offer up to me to burn.”

Michael managed to muster up enough presence of mind to process the ridiculousness of that statement. “To you? They expect you to burn them?”

“I know, right?” Maotelus shook his head incredulously. “I mean, it’s worked out for me, I guess, but I’m not sure who put that idea in their heads. Though I suppose I have my suspicions. I’ve made friends with some people over the years who are very passionate about keeping history recorded.”

Michael had a pair of cloth gloves he used when handling delicate artifacts. He tugged them on with shaking hands, and carefully, reverently picked out a book to start with. A book of fairy tales, written in Ancient Avarost. Michael would have cut off his right leg to get his hands on something like this, and he’d gotten it for the low price of ten gald and a bag of buns.

“My collection only goes back so far,” Maotelus said as Michael carefully turned the book’s brittle pages. “It wasn’t until King Claudin that use of the printing press was able to spread into secular spheres. He was a big crusader for mass literacy. Even if subsequent leadership differed in opinion from him, the technique was so widespread that banning it did squat.”

“Once the horse has bolted, locking the gate won’t do much,” Michael agreed. “Stupid of them to try. Printing – literacy – these books…it’s all much too important to keep from the world.”

“Well, I agree,” Maotelus said. “But did you know one of their concerns involved preserving art and architecture?”

Ancient architecture was just about the only thing that could break Michael’s concentration right now. He looked up from the page he was reading – a page with an illustration of an eight-necked beast about to swallow the continent. Maotelus gave a toothy grin, and sat back on his haunches to unwrap a bun with his clawed hands.

“I knew that’d get your attention. Before literacy was more widespread, art and architecture were the best way to communicate ideas and preserve history. You probably already knew that. But then the printing press came along…and suddenly, there’s no need for building grand cathedrals to house those stained-glass triptychs telling the stories of ancient Shepherds. You can just print out pamphlets and picture books to spread the good word. Maintaining older temples and such becomes less important. Better things to spend money on, anyway, no? And so you wind up with crumbling ruins dotting the continent; any history they have to tell long decayed and forgotten. There were other forces at play, of course. But it’s partially a consequence of these books on my shelves.”

Maotelus finished his bun, and dug around in the bag for another. Michael’s face was devoid of color. His heart felt as heavy as lead.

“Architecture can last longer than any human lifespan. Much longer than books, even; I’ve definitely lost some of my originals to basic decay, and only have copies that I wrote out myself. But it can only be lasting if there’s interest in making it last. Otherwise, it’s all just dust and stone.”

“…it shouldn’t have to be that way.”

Maotelus stopped mid-bite, blinking over the bun in his mouth.

“It shouldn’t have to be one or the other. That’s just – nonsense,” Michael spat. He clutched the book to his chest, tightly. “They don’t care about it because they don’t know about it and that’s what books are supposed to do. They make people know. They can make more people know than ever – they can spread across the entire world. They can make people on other continents hear the way the bells sound in Lastonbell, or dream about the rainbow spray off Ladylake’s water wheels when the sun hits them just right, or…or—”

“Taste a bun fresh from the Pendrago street market?” Maotelus offered, then offered one. “It sounds like I touched a nerve.”

“You might have,” Michael agreed. The bun was warm in his hand; stuffed heavy with filling. “Is there…is there anything like that? In your collection?”

“No, not really. Certainly not anything comprehensive. It’s a dangerous world out there, and people don’t get up to much travelling anymore. More importantly, most of them have bigger things to worry about than reading dry history books.”

Michael felt his hackles raise at the word. “Dry? What’s dry about it?”

Maotelus gave him a Look. “Don’t shoot the messenger. Who’s standing in whose library, now?”

There was no stopping Michael when he had a goal in mind. He crammed the bun into his mouth all at once, and leapt to his feet. He slowed down just enough to carefully slide the book he’d borrowed back into its place on the shelf, then resumed his mad dash to the small, Maotelus-sized desk at the corner of the room. The chair was too small for him, but there was no time for such trivial setbacks when inspiration had struck.

Maotelus watched as Michael dumped out the contents of his pack onto his desk, and slowly chewed.

“…you making yourself comfortable?”

“No, it’s very uncomfortable,” Michael replied, his words muffled by half-chewed curry bun. He found his ink and writing stick, and his journal full of travel notes. “Can you get me a real chair? And some more paper.”

Maotelus weighed the bag of buns in his claw, considering. He then eyed the empty spots on his shelves. A chair, and some paper, and surrendering his desk for an evening or three. And in return, a book that was sure to be the prize of his collection. It seemed like a bargain.

“Fine,” Maotelus said. He waddled off towards the door, and called over his shoulder: “I want a signed copy, though. When you’re done.”

#tales of zestiria #tales of zestiria the x #a tenderly crafted fanfiction #tozanniversary

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goglobalsmizz · 6 years ago

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Chris O'Brien Lifehouse

How is care designed through spaces?

What does it suggest when a place has good design in its space, compared to normal hospitals where it’s *just* a substandard clinical design. That leaves you and the place feeling bland, feeling institutionalised?

You could argue that it doesn’t make much difference in the great scheme of things, given that within cancer care (for example) it’s saving your life. Does it matter what the space and the materials look like?

I remember when I was doing my AS levels at high school, we got the option of “AS level in science for public understand” It was a great class- and one thing we had to do was use science knowledge with research criticality and present debates from a psycho-social perspective of issues. One things I had to write an essay on was whether sick-building syndrome was real. At the time I guess I was a bit skeptical, but now experience and a much deeper knowledge of social determinate and driments, and the power of architecture and space, and asbestos has changed my perception. Of course a building could technically make you sicker. Think mould on the walls in tenants houses with crappy landlords.

Yes, the visual and spatial concerns matter. There’s endless studies that show having a view from a hospital bed increases the likelihood of a faster recovery (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132312001758), the influences of landscape features on visitation of hospital green spaces makes the perception of care better ((2017) International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)

The visual language of healthcare fascinates me no end. How different countries do it, how we negotiate it, how we hack it, how we begin to love it.

The differentiation we make. So the hospital space is super clinical, and the Maggies Centre is purpose design and uniquely built. For example, why isn’t the contemporary art work from the local contemporary art gallery collection in the hospital, instead of the Maggies centre?

Jane generosity gave us a tour of the Lifehouse Cancer Centre, a place which she knows intimately.

I dragged Vanda with me, I said, “it’ll be interesting!” I’m sure this is exactly what she had in mind when I said we’d explore Sydney together. We get there too early to meet Jane and wander around the campus site. There’s a fancy McCafe, where all the ER staff are getting drinks and cakes. It has a great working desk space. We get drinks and wander around the sites. There’s a hospital that looks like a cheap holiday resort in Spain. Maybe it’s the palm trees that gives it that vibe. When we share our observations with Jane she laughs. It’s not the point of reference she’s used to.

We walk around the whole Lifehouse building and come across Street art on the wall.

I’ve never seen street art on a hospital before. Murals, yes. But there is a significant difference between mural and street-art. Street art is cool, rebellious, it has it’s beat to the ground up. Murals tend to be a safe version of wall-art. It’s history lies in a different part of activism history to street-art. but they did start off more political - but the mural has lost its edge as a more fuzzy & controlled art-form. Groups & institutions, like charities, schools and hospitals, like murals. They think it represents community, often made by someone who *might* have spoken to some people there to design it. So they’d like to think it’s a collaboration - but as Vanda said when we wandered underground in Sydney & the walls were painted by a never ending mural - it has a communist vibe. It’s like pretending things are cool - a mask. But underneath that, is a power-battle. Street-art seems to somehow escape this rebranding, this fuzziness. It still feels edgy - maybe it’s the spray paint material?

I make a mental note of street art.

And we meet Jane in the lobby. She takes us in a glass lift. This changes the hospital vibe for sure. Even in good hospitals in the UK, the lifts tend to be big, metal and dark.

She takes us to the chemotherapy lounge and gets the head nurse, K. , to give a tour. (they work together on research papers and projects together now). She tells us it used to be open plan, but now everyone gets their own booth. It’s very private. If you’re lucky - you get a seat with a window view.

There’s a beautiful vine flower bush growing over the window, giving a different perspective of being in Italy along the coast or something. I think back to the chemotherapy departments I’ve been in. One had a conservatory, which was nice in a way for the natural light but there was nothing to look at. Just the carpark of Doncaster. The other 2 had windows but they were built up high. All these spaces were mostly open planned. Different types of “comfortable leathery” deep chairs. I remember just watching tennis, wimbledon, on a communal TV. Other times I got told I should bring a book/magazine.

K. explains why things are like they are. It makes sense. Chemo is highly hazardous and toxic. For clinical reasons. I ask to take a photo of the empty half overflow section, and she moves the magazines out of the way to make it look tidier. Weird how we think items outside of the hospital can make the space seem less “clinical” or messy.

We say how much we like the wallpaper, which is drawings of people sketched all over. It’s contemporary. Like an art piece almost. K. says they have drawn themselves on pieces of paper and have put them onto the wall like a lil where’s wally. I love that idea. Hacking, personalising the space, putting identity back into it.

On the way out I notice near the self-checkin machines there’s a cool comic about cancer framed on the wall. I wonder about whether it’s available for people in print-out to take away and not just as cool art, as it captures something a lot of hospital literature doesn’t.

Jane then takes us to the “Patients only” space. It’s a room that’s like a library. Many shelves of books, 2 computers, an over and kitchen space and huge table with a massive 5,000 piece jigsaw on. At the window there’s models made from lolly-pop sticks, models of the hospital. Which is curious. Around the corner is a sleep area. I am impressed.

When I walked around a Maggies Centre in the UK, it was encouraged that people could just go there and sleep in front of everyone in the area. Just a place to take a chill in a social environment, not to be alone. And I always wondered why outpatients (& indeed general public space!) never had a space where you could have a little snooze. I can’t tell you how tired I am every time I’ve been at the hospital, even for just blood-tests. The subconscious worry and positioning of where you are takes its toll.

Jane says no healthcare professionals or hospital staff can use this space, it’s for patients only. I like that they have their own space. This is just so rare.

We leave and enter a huge open space, which is the support area. Here there’s everything: lymphodeama clinics, physios, occupational therapists, acupuncture, massage, support, and an amazzzzing gym. Better than our staff gym in Leeds. Jane says there’s always personal trainers to help support you in whatever you want to do . Both Vanda and myself are really impressed. The view leaves a lot to be desired - but Jane has already thought this through. She wants to make a garden of sorts.

We go to leave. I notice now that the wallpaper is typography over layered into patterns. As a font lover, type-setter, I love it. Why does this make a difference to me? Why do I appreciate that the time and the focus has been taken to chose something as classy as this?

Everywhere we go I see piece of “art” but they’re placed and framed almost like interventions. They’re not mounted on the wall. They don’t feel tired and aged like a lot of "hospital art*” does.

(* I hate that i’ve just called in “hospital art”, but what I mean here is that the general theme of what art tends to be placed in the institution - expressive abstract that’s done in natural and calm colours, or tried-and-tested landscape images. Rarely do we get contemporary art - and when we do it’s hidden away. Not given the agency for what it was made for in the first place. Very interesting) These hospital art interventions I am assuming is done through the Art-Studio - which is open for patients. Like art therapy, but the images on the leaflet make it look like a proper university art class. I hope it really is.

But it feels light and contemporary and more tasteful than what I normally see (what I normally see s something like a primary school work display).

What I do notice though, is that there’s a lot of silhouettes. Drawn people on the wallpaper, drawn profiles on tracing paper that hangs alone in the lobby, outline drawn tracings of people onto the window. It adds an energy but it’s an interesting thing to focus on.

Given one of the issues with a major life-threatening illness, such as cancer, and how the treatment and the healthcare institution often make our identities feel transient and lost and/or stripped. Here we have a reminder, like ghosts, that people where here. Maybe that’s a dark reading, perhaps they serve as reminders of people hanging in there - making sure that we can hack the system, and its environment by literally making it more person focused.

Jane shows us from the lobby which is a good few floors above other floors below and tells us how different areas are part of different hospitals and she needs 3 different patient numbers to enter 3 different places within the same building. That separation is incredible to think about. Ownership, and responsibility. It goes to show too, that even though having a beautiful space with areas of ownership, and agency, DOES make a difference to your experience of care - it’s just so important to get the basics nailed too. 3 separate numbers for the same building is asking for a mistake to be made. And as we go to split up for the evening, Jane says how she did not like the idea of coming to this centre for her treatment. But as she went through her care, she grew to love the building and it’s people and community. That this place is also a part of her.

Such an incredible experience and observation, that the space moves her to continue to be a part of it and is now on the board to help with maintaining and enhancing the vision and care. And of course, Jane has a lot of cool ideas and projects which need to be acted upon.

But even if we didn’t read any research on the positive effects of design / art in hospitals and recovery - just hearing how Jane felt through these spaces spoke volumes.

What is really interesting to take forward too, is that we have focused on design within architectural and spatial context. How the environment can generate this feeling of being cared for, being part of something. Maggies Centres are a great example of this. Lifehouse is a great example of hospital meets a Maggie’s centre vibe - meeting half way point between clinical and personable. Clinical and thoughtful. Business meets family/friends.

However, we look across the board to any institutions patient information - very few spend the same amount of time and understanding of design and experience through aesthetics to this area. Despite it being fundamental to consenting, understanding and experience and control. All forms of caring, institutional as well as personal, require that attention be paid to purpose, power, and particularity. Identifying these three as the critical elements for assessing practices of care grows out of any understanding that takes care as a relational practice. As we think about institutional settings for care, we rarely invoke similar language about purposefulness or about power and particularity. And it is here where I am the most interested and why all of this exists in different forms, in different places, or in some areas not at all. And that dark-matter really interests me.

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nataliehegert · 7 years ago

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Finding Human

As we sidled up to a parking spot just off Wilshire Boulevard, I saw a white dog on a leash out of the corner of my eye, taking care of business, as dogs are wont to do out on public sidewalks. Opening the passenger door I got a better look at the dog, noting how her skin seemed to cling to her bones, revealing each vertebra along the spine. I then remembered the disclaimer included in all written materials about the Pierre Huyghe retrospective at LACMA: “The dog’s appearance is consistent with her breed. She has been examined by local animal safety agencies and is in excellent health.” Could this be…? Her foreleg, dyed a fluorescent pink color, confirmed it. It was Human (2012), the dog that is a work of art by Pierre Huyghe. Besides the stroke of genius luck we had in securing free street parking, we had also spotted the star of Huyghe’s show before even entering the building. An auspicious start.

Pierre Huyghe, the fifty-two-year-old French artist associated with the “relational aesthetics” set, creates films, installations, photographs, sculptures, and “live situations” often involving living creatures. At Esther Schipper Gallery in Berlin in 2011, for instance, he introduced 10,000 ants, 50 spiders, and one person carrying the flu virus into an otherwise empty gallery.

There are apparently ants and spiders in LACMA’s Resnick Pavilion, too, but they were mostly missing in action when I arrived. My partner, however, attests that he saw one ant, one single ant, poised at the opening of a hole drilled in the wall, standing there as if apprehending the grand vista beyond his humble hole-in-the-wall ant life. What luck again, that one of us happened to encounter this single ant at the moment of his sublime discovery of the wider world. Huyghe himself probably would never have imagined it.

At the outset of the exhibition stands the Name Announcer (2011), a man in a tuxedo declaring visitors’ names in turn as they enter the space. My name was uttered with such booming effect as I crossed the threshold into Huyghe’s world, it was as if the sound actually thrust me into the space. Like a reluctant skydiver given a push out of the plane, I was immediately there, no time to contemplate what was happening, the rush of the exhibition had already started. A program was thrust into my hand by another attendant at the door. “You’ll need this,” he intoned knowingly. For fear of bottlenecking the Name Announcer’s flow, I swiftly took the program and then moved to the right, where I could safely watch the first film—an 8-mm film projected on the wall, titled À Part (1986-87)—and study the exhibition program-cum-treasure map. The room is dark. Crumpled on the floor in the corner behind me there was a fur coat. Above it a poster (Or [1995]) of a hill and a path cut in twain, leading in two different directions.

Unlike your run-of-the-mill retrospective, Huyghe’s exhibition is thematically rather than chronologically ordered, and lacks labels of any kind. The program is the key to deciphering what it is you may or may not be looking at. The program also reveals the extraordinary architecture of the exhibition, as seen from above. Walls and half-walls angle jaggedly through the space, creating acute nooks and niches for discrete works of art between the open areas for viewing the video works. The exhibition operates in a set of what Huyghe calls “emergences and rhythms.” I had the distinct feeling of being pulled through the space by a kind of magnetism, attracted to a sound here and then to some sort of movement over there. With its fragmentary, almost labyrinthine layout, there was purposefully no systematic way to approach the exhibition—that instead, the visitor is meant to explore almost haphazardly. It is easy to miss things this way. But it also opens up the possibility of a sense of discovery, the kind one finds out in the natural world—a feeling that is otherwise difficult to replicate in an institutional setting, but which seems to arise naturally here. While gazing into Zoodram 5 (2011), one of the three aquarium ecosystems in the exhibition, an unexpected and sublime sightline emerged: a hermit crab inhabiting a shell shaped like the head of Brancusi’s 1910 Sleeping Muse nestled in the corner of the tank; through the glass I could see an oil painting after Modigliani on the opposite wall; overhead some neon lights flashed. It was as though art and natural history, from the primordial to the contemporary, had momentarily collapsed into one moment.

The notion of collapse or, perhaps more accurately, entropy, seems to be at work in many of Huyghe’s situations. In one of his best known works, a bee hive replaces the head of a modern statue of a female nude—the collision of a living system with inanimate stone, the collapse of life and representation. The sculpture, Untilled (Liegender Frauenakt) (2012), could be seen as an allegory of the dismantling of modernism, or even civilization itself: the eventuality of human monuments to perpetuity succumbing to the indiscriminate rhythms of nature and the deleterious effects of time. It’s neither warning nor judgment, however. Any grand statement it might suggest is buffered by its casual placement in the exhibition—set on a balcony amid three machines spewing ice, water, and vapor, it’s nearly camouflaged by its shady concrete surroundings, with water pooling around its base like so much runoff from an overtaxed air conditioning unit. I’m reminded that human values and efforts here are situated within the workings of time and nature, rather than oppositionally set apart.

But where was Human? We hadn’t seen the Ibizan hound since we spotted her outside. We were just about to leave, when I stepped beyond a curtain into a darkened room where music played to a dance performed by a smoke machine and colored lights. Behind the Light Box (2002), Human was curled up on the floor next to it. An audience was gathered. Silhouetted by the light emanating from the LED mask worn by the dog’s handler, I watched as a little girl slowly and silently approached the dog to take a photograph. The music reached a peak, then the lights went out. The masked man stood up suddenly and Human briskly followed him out of the room. As though instinctively following some primal pack impulse, the entire room stood up and filed out the door after the dog. Huyghe’s “emergences and rhythms” in action.

Five days later, like an apparition, we saw Human again, on a street corner in the Arts District of downtown LA. We turned around the block, parked, and then spotted the dog and her handler walking down the street in our direction. What luck again. We stopped and chatted for a bit. A native of Kassel, he’d met Huyghe at dOCUMENTA, and has accompanied Human to Cologne, Paris, and now Los Angeles. They will be headed to South America next, Chile I think he said. Their days off are spent exploring the city. He wondered if LACMA was too far to walk, and we assured him, yes, he should take a car. We then said goodbye, and watched as Human trotted off after him, heading west.

Review Posted on 1/5/15

#review #highlights

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