I got an email recently about an art project by Laura Splan (a very interesting medical/body fine artist) that I thought was worth sharing here. This piece is a scarf knitted from surgical tubing, which is colored with — and I suppose alive to due to — the wearer’s own blood.
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i wonder how much blood it took to fill it?
that is amazing.
wow.
very cool!
that is freakin incredible!
I agree. That is very interesting and neat. I would love to see it in person. Must take forever to knit a tubing scarf. haha
I wonder if my scraf would be blue lol :)
Awsome concept, wow!
that is so awesome!
I wish I had ideas like this back when I did art :P
That seems like alot of blood to lose.
Awesome idea and brilliantly executed
well i guess it would be warm atleast
undeniably a little bizarre, but nice and meaningful. i really like this.
My god, that’s awesome.
Mmmm, toasty!
thats craziness.
That’s beautiful and a little unsettling. This is probably going to sound retarded to anyone with any bit of medical knowledge, but I’m curious as to whether you could have another needle in the other arm so that the blood continues circulating? Or would the bloodcells like…die…from being in the tubes for too long? Eh? Ehhh?
Amazing, but wouldnt that put a lot of extra pressure on the heart? There wouldnt be any valves to stop the blood pushing back down on itself and thats a lot of tubing to get through.
amazing. i would like to see some close ups…
That’s intense! A very unique idea, but I must echo others’ questions. How much blood took to get it such a brilliant colour? I’m not saying so much about the IV, but how much blood would one have to lose to get that colour?
Has anyone clicked the link to her website? Her other projects are pretty cool if you like the blood scarf.
….I have a feeling that’s not really the wearer’s blood, guys.
Beautiful!
That is an interesting paradox. Warmed by your own blood being drained out of you. Or did she filter it back in somehow?
Wow, this kind of creeps me out a little, but it’s just so cool that I can’t stop looking at it.
to #15: the vinyl tubing being used is the same stuff we use in the blood bank to transfer packed cells between bags – so the cells wouldn’t all necessarily “die” – that is, hemolyze/rupture – but they’d be cold, and there’s really a pretty big chance of infection due to a slipup somewhere in the asceptic technique.
from the artist’s site, however, it seems like that wasn’t the point:
“The implied narrative is a paradoxical one in which the device keeps the user warm with their blood while at the same time draining their blood drip by drip.”
I’m amazed that I can stomach a guy shoving a knitting needle through his balls yet this makes me want to toss my cookies…
it’s like a cross between SAATCHI’S controversial “Sensations” exhibit and the “Body Worlds” exhibit.
im soooo fascinated.
it’s amazing, but it makes me feel woozy just looking at it. whoa.
Wow! I guess if you can’t donate to the red cross (or what ever, due to fresh mods) you can donate for art. I totally love the concept! I need to set some time aside to go through her page.
Before I started reading, I thought ‘what the hell is this? Some guy with a weird looking scarf?’, ’cause my mom does a lot of crochet and I never saw the material.
Then after I read, I found it a little interesting. Though I’m with the earlier comments, I’m pretty sure that’s not the wearer’s blood.
Not a fan of this but the rest of the things on her site are amazing.
i totally love this.
and: i would think that it’d only take about a unit, maybe two if you were being generous, of blood [normal volume taken at blood donation, not a big deal for the body to recover from] to fill it, as you’d only have to get a small volume on the inside of the tubes to get the colour effect. Most of the volume of the scarf will be airspace between tubes or the actual thickness of the rubber.
And: while theoretically it’s POSSIBLE to have the blood flowing back into the bloodstream, it pretty much wouldn’t happen at all because it would be a total fucking nightmare to sterilise. Yes, it would lower the blood pressure a bit, but i think it’d be similar to a dialysis patient.
t[hough, i'm only a medstudent, not a doctor - i'mnot saying i'm right, just suggesting a possibility]
Interesting concept. Can’t imagine weaving all that tubing was easy!
it reminds me of body world’s membrane rabbit/lambs.. cool.
this has to be one of my favorite pieces i’ve seen in a very long time. impressive.
Fake or not, its a fucking awesome idea. I love it!
There’s nothing i love more than a perfectly creative mind. This guy is amazing
fucking love it !
Wow awesome! Would make a great conversation starter if it somehow got snagged and burst.
Her work reminds me of the artist Orlan….kind of unsetteling, but fascinating.
Whoa, that’s incredible.
I’d be terrified of wearing it though, since one little leak could kill you if the blood actually circulates in the scarf.
Mmmmm
guys it isnt real. its just for a photograph. its about the concept of the paradox not an actual scarf willed with blood
Cant believe everyone thinks this is real…..how could you fill that scarf with the blood in your body, you would no longer have any in you, which the last time i checked was necessary for us, as humans to live…also cant stop looking at the blurryness in the right hand corner
I love Laura’s work. I’m getting a tattoo based off of her Doilies project later next year!!
That tubing can be really thin… you can take a out a good ammount of blood before a person gets woozy especially if they have good hemoglobin…
450 millilitres, about a pint is drawn for blood, and the person walks away with a cookie, a sticker, and some ok.
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That has got to be one of the most amazing things I have ever seen!
Looks like a big AIDS ribbon.
Why? How can this possibly contribute to humanity?
Uh…This would sort of work…you couldn’t have blood actually pumping through it. Too much for the heart to handle. You could sure as hell fill it with blood, but depending on the size of the tubing you would definately loose way too much blood.
Im studying extreme performance art and we’ve just been looking at this piece. It was in fact the artist blood and no, it does not go back into her body, it drips out behind her. Its supervised by medicals and is no more blood than you would loose when you actually give blood. which millions of people do every year!!
It takes a very creative mind to come up with something as unique as this. excellent work!