This article discusses the “sick body” in performance art and ethics, specifically in Taste of Flesh/Bite Me I’m Yours (2015) by London-based artist Martin O’Brien, which was commissioned by the Arts Catalyst as part of Trust Me, I’m an Artist , a Creative Europe-funded project exploring ethical issues in art that engages with biotechnology and medicine, such as medical self-experimentation, extreme body art and art practices using living materials and scientific process. It considers the bodily categorization “sick,” particularly in relation to when the markers for such categorization are rendered invisible through illnesses—in this context, cystic fibrosis. Through the performance of this illness, important ethical questions are raised for the performing sick body, including complicity, subjectivity and the situation-behavior dynamics present between a performer and an audience.

Trust Me, I’m an Artist (TMIAA) is a European-based project devoted to developing “Ethical Frameworks for Artists, Cultural Institutions and Audiences Engaged in the Challenges of Creating and Experiencing New Art Forms in Biotechnology and Biomedicine.” As such it brings together a wide variety of interested parties to debate and, hopefully to some extent, resolve ethical issues arising at the intersection of art, science and biomedicine. Leonardo hosts a selection of articles by the artists and curators reporting about the project and the experience.

This article reflects upon Martin O’Brien’s 2015 commission Taste of Flesh/Bite Me I’m Yours as part of Trust Me, I’m an Artist , a Creative Europe-funded project. O’Brien discusses the ethics of witnessing the “sick body” in performance and considers the concept of disease as a mode of spectatorship—a concept employed in order to think through the politics of witnessing difficult performance work by artists with illnesses. The artist particularly reflects upon the nature of participation during his performance, which involved explicit interaction with his body as “sick.” O’Brien concludes by considering the ways in which the nature of this interaction allows for the striving toward agency over one’s own flesh.

Skotopoiesis was the first event from the series Confronting Vegetal Otherness within which the author/artist explored novel plant-human relationships beyond the limits of empathy, interfaces and language. The 19-hour performance was her attempt at intercognition with germinating cress, using her body’s shadow as a sign of human presence. Upon the conclusion of the performance, an ethical committee gathered as a part of the Trust Me, I’m an Artist series to examine the work and was challenged to consider the ethics of including plant life in artworks as well as to assess our attitude toward plants in general.