X-RAY DEPARTMENT was a participatory installation created for End of the Road Festival, exploring the human desire to classify, interpret and find meaning in an unpredictable world.
The project drew loosely on traditions in which animals are used to reflect aspects of human behaviour and character — from fables and bestiaries to the idea of an animal spirit guide.
Presented as the fictional Institute of Animal Spirit Guides, the installation moved playfully between the rational language of scientific testing and more imaginative, irrational forms of interpretation.
Institute of Animal Spirit Guides
Festival visitors were invited to complete a personality questionnaire designed to identify their supposed animal spirit guide.
The deliberately pseudo-scientific process borrowed from the language of testing, diagnosis and classification while producing increasingly playful and unlikely conclusions.
Participants were then encouraged to create their own cardboard animal features and accessories, transforming the result of the questionnaire into a physical character.
X-Ray Department
At the centre of the installation was a large theatrical X-ray machine.
Participants stepped behind a translucent illuminated screen wearing their newly created cardboard forms. From the opposite side, their bodies disappeared into shadow while ears, antlers, wings and other exaggerated features created the silhouette of an imagined inner animal.
The machine therefore appeared to reveal something normally invisible — not bones or organs, but the participant’s supposed animal spirit guide.
Participation and performance
The work depended on visitors becoming performers within the installation.
Drawing, costume-making, shadow play and the personality quiz provided different points of entry, allowing people to move gradually from observer to participant.
The resulting silhouettes were often strange, theatrical and humorous, with the simple cardboard constructions becoming considerably more dramatic when seen as enlarged shadows behind the illuminated screen.
Rational and irrational
The project played with the tension between our desire for rational explanation and our attraction to systems of belief, personality testing and symbolic interpretation.
The visual language of an X-ray department suggested scientific authority, while the process taking place inside was knowingly subjective and absurd.
This tension allowed the installation to occupy a space between science, superstition, theatre and play.
Day and night
X-RAY DEPARTMENT operated during both the day and evening.
As daylight faded, the illuminated screens, coloured lights and projected shadows became increasingly prominent, transforming the installation into a more theatrical environment and making the silhouettes visible across the festival site.
Project team
Artists — Tom Pearman / Emily Tracy
Assistants — Joe Pearman / Kilbride family
With love Josh x
