Think about this carefully for a moment. The question(s) in its long form goes something like this:
In our media-savvy, consumer infotainment society, has health care — as a professional, technical and cultural practice — become so ceremonial and ‘branded’, that we could call some of its players ‘performance artists’?
Or let’s look at it from another angle:
For patients and doctors to successfully negotiate the financial complexities, physical risks and legal vulnerabilities of the modern day clinical interaction, does each have to be so competent in their role, so adept in directing the movement of information, that the whole exchange comes to resemble a scene from some grand but unknown performance art ‘happening’?
While I might be stretching a bit — may be more than a bit — the usual understanding of ‘performance art’, there is a sense of performance art that works to uncover aspects of ordinary life that have become, how do we say it, over-stylized. And when the performance is not on stage, but right in the hospital admissions office, the ER, or the doctor’s exam room, one may experience a surreal jolt about the authenticity of the encounter.
The discomfort of whoever happens to be the spectator comes in when he (or she) senses that the combination of interior design, attire, status symbols and scripted language is intended to have an effect. And while the effect itself may remain illusive to the spectator — and thus oddly becoming ineffective — there is at some point an invitation to play a part in the performance.
But have no fear of ‘performance anxiety’ (sorry). Just as there is an art to being a doctor, there may be an equivalent art to being a patient. The artistry on both sides has been in fact nurtured by decades of television, movie and magazine stories about these classic medical encounters. So most every adult American should be well trained.
Yet, of course, there remains the unsettling question of how ‘real’ is the ‘performance’ being staged? How well have the mediated roles communicated, and attended to, the actual situation at hand? As Raul Vaneigem has argued, every day life is the ultimate measure of all things. If the roles become too rigid, too ceremonial, too far afield from the pain, then the script needs to be rewritten, and the performance needs to be directed by someone else.
Or better yet, maybe the performers, should follow Kalle Lasn’s advice and trade in the prepackaged experiences and media events for real living.
