How To Dissect Hyperreality (GONE WRONG!)

[dreamingwithfairies]

The video footage appears blurry at first, pointing upwards. Cool fluorescent lights shine in the spaces between the square ceiling panels. The camera shakes a little - adjusts, steadies as if being fixed onto something like a tripod. But the vantage point is unusual.

As the camera lens focuses and clears, the view appears to be from the top of a naked female body, lying pale and motionless upon a metallic dissection table. The portable 2007 Sony camcorder is actually balanced between the nose and chin of the deceased. Her breasts are spread apart, pooling like drops of wax on either side of her chest.

A white figure glides into frame from the right side, her heels clicking on the cold tiled mortuary floor, positioning herself down by the feet of the cadaver - the vanishing point in the center.

"Have you ever felt like your life is too boring and ordinary to be considered beautiful?" The woman asks the camera in a deadpan British voice. Her hair is cut short, bleached blonde and dishevelled. Sleek rectangular shades balance on her long, narrow nose, above which pencil-thin eyebrows recall the likes of 1920s opium-smoking flappers. Her dark blood red lips would be visible even in 144p quality, deliberately bold.

"Do you find yourself spending hours scrolling through the internet," she gesticulated, "watching other people's lives YOU'VE decided are more beautiful and interesting than yours, because they're filled with high-rise apartments, the perfect "that girl" workout routine and interesting cities? You probably keep telling yourself that when you have more money, when you meet the right people, when you have a brand new apartment that you'll be beautiful and interesting too." She then procured a facemask out of her labcoat pocket and secured it over her lower face - an imprint of her lipstick was planted on the outside of the mask, right where her lips would be positioned. 

Her next words were muffled and quieter; she made no effort to speak louder or use a microphone, and the effect was both amateurish and unnervingly casual given the visual context.

"You've spent so much of your time waiting for your life to begin that you're missing what's in front of you right now." She gestured her hands at the corpse, but her eyes remained fixed at the viewer, peering out from her glasses. Following an uncomfortably drawn-out pause, she momentarily left the frame and then returned with a pair of latex gloves, both of which she dramatically snapped as she put them on. "And the secret is (snap!) you don't have to keep waiting."

She spoke as if giving a tutorial on how to conduct a proper autopsy, but the content of her words did not match what she was doing or where she was. 

"In this video," she said, casually gripping the leg of the dead body, "I will be giving you tips and tricks and realistic ways you can actually begin romanticising your life, start seeing yourself as the main character and stop waiting for your life to begin."

The woman then moved towards the camera and took it in her left hand to film her right hand touching and examining the cadaver's skin.

"Usually," she pointed at a small heart tattoo on the wrist, "my life is not very aesthetic. I have ADHD, so I procrastinate a lot and struggle to get out of bed in the morning - romanticising my life has literally motivated me to study, go outside and have hobbies."

The woman continued to talk as she went around the corpse, showing herself touching and checking the skin and every body part for any injuries, markings, wounds or signs of previous medical intervention.

"Now, when I talk about romanticising your life, I'm talking about how to make the little things special. As a doctor, I've seen first-hand how short life can be. We need to grab life with both hands and squeeze as much joy from every single moment as we can." Despite the things she was saying, the woman spoke without emotion - she was professional, cool, serious. Momentarily, her face flashed past the screen of the handheld camera; she was looking around, searching for somewhere to prop it up again. She opted to place the camera on a nearby table but immediately let out a quiet, displeased grunt when she realised the table wasn't high enough to give a proper view of the cadaver on the opposite side. She needed to find something better.

She continued talking.

"Don't wait for happiness. I'm a Capricorn so I'm all about being realistic here, so I'll tell you about some small, budget-friendly changes you can make that can make a huge difference in your life." The delivery of this line was irritated, she was frowning, then straightened up so her head was out of frame, only the view of her crossing her arms, thinking. "Some things shouldn't be romanticised, of course... Not everything can be perfect and within your control, so take or leave whatever you want from this video." After saying this, she walked away and appeared to have left the room entirely.

The seconds passed, which then dragged into minutes, forcing the viewer to watch the dead body lying on the dissection table opposite. 

So still, so quiet. 

There was no transition, no music, no special affects to distract from the raw reality. Death was waiting to be studied.

 

About thirteen minutes later, the doctor returned - and she wasn't alone; in tow was a young man with dark features, also in a labcoat and facemask. The video quality was too low to adequately show his expression as he followed the woman. He then went around behind the camera and took up the role of cameraman, giving a proper view of everything that was happening.

"My first tip," she said, taking up the knife for cutting into flesh - she pointed its tip upwards, like a finger, in her hand, "is waking up more peacefully. I switched out my alarm clock about a year ago into one of those that emit faux sunlight thirty minutes before I need to wake up. It sends signals to the brain or something. You can set it to, like, make bird sounds -" as she said this, she began to make a slow and careful Y-incision onto the cadaver's chest area, "you can set, like, a little tranquil song. It can make such a difference."

She proceeded to peel back the layers of the corpse - revealing musculature, abdominal wall and ribcage.

With each layer she gave advice.

"Learn to make your favourite drink at home, something that you can enjoy and kind of look forward to in the morning. It can be literally something as simple as a matcha or a tea."

The camera panned to a view of her looking down at her work, zoomed in slowly. Whatever she was doing with her hands now was not interesting to the cameraman. Or was he nervously averting his point of view away from the dissection?

"I am somebody who LOVES vision boards and Pinterest boards," the doctor continued, unaware of the shift in focus, "I love making Pinterest boards for every single season, but you don't have to use Pinterest. You can physically print out pictures you found and make a little collage dream board or write into a manifestation journal. I know this sounds silly but it made me look forward to life so much more. I live in England where it rains a lot; I dreaded going out every day it rained and it used to make me so sad, upset and mad at the rain..." She turned to look at the camera, realised it had been pointed at her for a good minute, and glared while posing with her cutting instrument as if to threaten. The cameraman was subsequently intimidated back to filming the corpse whose ribcage was now open with the organs exposed and glistening pink and red in the fluorescent light. He zoomed out a bit as the doctor continued speaking and pointing at the different organs.

"... But about three years ago I started making Pinterest boards for every single season, including our endless English rain, and I was like oh hold on a minute this is actually quite cute, and now I genuinely look forward to rain and I've fallen in love with each season."

The camera zoomed in as the doctor began removing different organs, weighing them, measuring, inspecting them and sectioning them to assess their internal structure. Liver was the first organ.

"It's not just for seasons - I make aesthetic moodboards for work too. Whenever I feel unmotivated, I will scroll through or add aesthetic images to my work moodboard. Pinterest is really good for this; sometimes it really takes seeing through another person's eyes to realise the beauty in something like the weather or a place." The liver was weighed and measured. "It can also help you create like an alter-ego to step into. When I'm feeling really unmotivated with my work, I look through my rainy weather moodboard and think about what I can romanticise about my work to trick myself into enjoying my day." The liver was sectioned and examined. "Being super medical and lobotomy chic girly for a few months really makes me look forward to getting work done." Once finished with the liver, she then proceeded to move onto the spleen and kidneys, also moving onto her next point.

"There is this mantra I use for romanticising life - find the joy in everything you do and make everything you do joyful." As she said this, the camera zoomed out and slowly panned up along the length of the cadaver. Right when the view almost revealed the face of the dissected female, the doctor swiped at the cameraman; the footage shook, and after a grainy hiss switched off to a blank blue screen.

 

"Make your spaces more personal to you." The doctor's voice returned abruptly as she fiddled with the camera, her voice still professional, still muffled behind the facemask as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The mortuary and the cadaver was back in frame, and it seemed the assistant was no longer present. Unable to properly prop up the camera or rely on another person, the doctor had no choice but to continue filming the autopsy herself, awkwardly going through the organs with one hand, putting the camera down only when sectioning them off for inspection. 

"I've done this in my life with all the vintage and thrifted things that cost under £5 and are also things I've collected over time. Once you start curating your own life, your space feels so much more meaningful and adds this romantic aspect to your life."

It was time to study the gastrointestinal tract and there was simply no way she could properly do it with one hand. 

"For aesthetic makeup storage ideas, I love using vintage teacups and a little crystal heart to store my most used jewelry. It's all about gradually and intentionally adding the little things that are more personal to you, especially the vintage touches." She put the camera on an adjacent dissection table and adjusted the frame to show her taking out the gastrointestinal tract out of the cadaver and plopping them on the weighing scales. "My boyfriend got me this vintage jewelry box and it's my pride and joy."

There was a brief moment when she simply stared at the guts, as if almost breaking character over how absurd the whole thing was. Then like a robot with a minor refresh she resumed her work to finish off with the gastrointestinal tract.

"You can make music playlists for every season, like a soundtrack to your life..." Strangely enough, her words started to quicken and her cool manner faltered, sounding slightly nervous. "Write gratitude lists every day or once a week... Eventually, I want to make a video about discovering your personal fashion style. Life is too short to be dressing for the approval of other people. There's nothing silly about wearing an outfit that makes you happy. Finding ways to let go of perfection, I think, is key..."

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

The camera captured the doctor moving over to stand next to the corpse, leaning over to study its face for a long time but her figure obstructed the view of whatever it was she saw. 

It was a long time before she spoke again.

"That's not fucking possible." She mumbled, barely audible, her character cracking from some kind of disturbance. "It can't be- this can't be real..."

Suddenly, she turned around and rushed towards the camera. The audio clicked and tapped as her hands grappled to hold onto it, to focus pointing on the cadaver. 

She slowly approached the body - even her heels were barely audible, as if scared to awaken the eternal sleeper. As she approached she focused the camera on the deceased woman's head - her face zoomed in to show eerily familiar features: messy bleach blonde hair, pencil thin brows - only her lips were pale and flat. But the nose was unmistakeable.

"It, well," the doctor held her breath, mustering up whatever strength she had left to maintain composure in her voice, "it takes a fair amount of practice to laugh at - at yourself."

Her nervousness yielded to a giggle. She the put down the camera one last time and in the frame showed off the rose tattoo on her own wrist as her laughter turned hysterical. 

"I love you all so much! Thank you for watching and I'll see you all on the other side!"

The rest of the video was her laughing so hard she collapsed on her knees - out of frame - and coughed several times from the force of her laugh. It sounded maniacal yet oddly infectious, as though she was reacting to the funniest joke she had ever heard in her life. She even screamed with laughter, which at times could have almost been mistaken for a pained wailing. 

This went on and on.

"Know when to put the camera down." Her voice finally sounded through, exhausted but still shaking with laughter somewhere on the floor. "Some moments simply cannot be captured."