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22/06/2017

BBC Radio 4 - The Body Electric

What can we learn about the body by experiencing it through the senses of artists?

Documentary. Cathy FitzGerald explores what we can learn about the body by experiencing it through the senses of artists.

Cathy FitzGerald considers what we can learn about the body by experiencing it through the senses of artists. 

Imagine you're experiencing the human body for the very first time. Look at the spiderweb of lines on a palm, how delicate the skin is at the pulse-point on the wrist. Feel the squishy warmth of an ear lobe, the dry honeycomb of elbow-skin. What does it sound like when a hand brushes a cheek? Do the shoulders smell different to the back? 

We're surrounded by images of the body - and yet perhaps less in touch with our own fleshy selves than at any time in history. Many of us know our bodies only in terms of illness or deficiency - how they let us down.

Cathy FitzGerald explores the surface of the body as a terra incognita in the company of three artists, who each work with a different sense - sound-artist Matthew Herbert (who creates an 'audio-nude'), Wolfgang Georgsdorf who works with smell, and the Scottish painter Alison Watt. She also attends a life-drawing class at the National Gallery, led by drawing tutor and art-historian Karly Allen. 

Produced and Presented by Cathy FitzGerald
A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

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