Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum's early works explore the world beneath the flesh.This is best illustrated in her 'Corps etranger' (literally 'foreign body') - a video featuring the use of two routinely used invasive medical imaging processes: endoscopy in which fibre optics scan the upper part of the digestive system, and coloscopy for the colon and intestines.

'The viewing chamber is a pure white cylinder pierced by two slender apertures through which the viewer enters. A narrow margin between [the circular floor-mounted] screen and wall allows the viewer to stand at the perimeter of the image, back facing the wall, in the classic pose of a victim. Movement is severely restricted, and communal proximity to other viewers also complicates the experience of intimacy.
This sense of overwhelming intimacy is further heightened by a soundtrack of her own breath and heartbeat that accompanies the video through the soft black acoustic fabric lining. She invites the viewer to a close up view of her own body - from the dry landscape that is her skin to the timeless, primitive, and unchanged glistening cavernous world beneath. Every orifice of this virgin territory is explored in turn by the camera's 'imperialistic' eye.