Surgeons and barbers were originally one and the same, just as priests were doctors. You can still see the holdover of religious zeal in medicine today. Another place to get a sense of the nature of industrialized medicine is in the writing of Amartya Sen. His economic studies found that the more a society spends on health care, the more likely are its inhabitants to regard themselves as sick.

What is the relationship between your art and surgery?

While recuperating, I've been thinking a little bit about surgery as a response to societal shame and taboo. Shame operates on a fear of exclusion and abandonment, and a lot of cosmetic surgery seems to try to assuage that very fear. There's a process of trying to construct a blameless body. Illness in general, quite apart from surgery, is connected with shame, I think. I alway feel guilty at the doctor or dentist's office. It's that priest holdover thing, maybe. Anyway, cultural resonses to shame have been on my mind in general; the last pice I showed was touching on that as a theme.

What is the purpose of shame?

It's the most dynamic and interactive form of punishment there is.