TECHNO HOLISTIC MEDICINE (noun) is characterised by constant innovation, the digitisation of information and communication, and the growing importance of digital networks/platforms specifically within the space of spiritual and holistic health.
Technology mediates our perceptions of our bodies and our experiences from Webmd to TikTok influencers. However, there is no impetus for tech/media outlets to act on behalf of the security and health of the general public. Simple solutions are seductive tools of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories, allowing followers a sense of calm from the chaos of complex problems.
The treatments frequently discussed are essentially a cultural appropriation soup of Indigenous and/or Asian practices blended together to promote the easiest and most monetizable elements to audiences craving care and spiritual fulfillment.
Techno Holistic Medicine is a video, sound and sculpture installation. The piece is not a criticism of the toxic spiritual wellness followers, who are often themselves vulnerable communities, or their profiteers who have succumbed to septic capitalistic pursuits. The piece attempts to draw sympathy to those swept up in a systemic, informational issue rapidly outgrowing the dark corners of the internet
CURATORIAL TEXT by LILITU
In her video installation Techno Holistic Medicine, Bailey Keogh asks us to turn a
compassionate eye towards those who fall victim to the ever rising world of healing culture. In
particular, Keogh’s piece focuses on the relationship between holistic practices and mainstream
technology, in which influencers turned experts offer quick and easy medical, psychological, or
monetary advice to capitalize on the wide reach of digital platforms. Basing on an over-
simplification of spiritual - and often eastern - philosophies, the dynamics of technological holistic
medicine tend to profit from people’s fragility by offering them shortcuts and ready-made answers
to their problems.
In many ways, this phenomenon has many touchpoints with the realities of cults and sects,
whose dynamics we are all more familiar with since they have found their ways into the
mainstream through investigative documentaries, films and series. What Techno Holistic Medicine
succeeds in doing, is highlighting the manner in which the digital medium comes into play. By
showing outtakes from videos of multiple influencers, Keogh does not only show how wide spread
this reality is, but also how established formulas and formats repeat themselves. As if they followed
a script, these influencers often look straight into the camera, discard everyone else’s promises as
empty, play cheap mind-reading games, and exaggerate realities they encounter to present them
as miraculous healing wonders.
While some of these schemes are easier to recognize and too often lead nowhere, Keogh
is not afraid to also show where the fascination could catch up even with the more skeptical
viewers. What we are asked to look at is what someone could find appeal in, and what tricks this
magnetism plays upon. Furthermore, Keogh juxtaposes the images of these guides with several
videos of bees, creating both continuity and contrast between the images. Continuity inasmuch as
the holistic videos strongly touch upon the frequency of bees’ buzzing and its healing property;
contrast because the multitude of bees and the solo-standing faces or figures of the influencers
stand in strong opposition. Traditionally the symbol for hard workers, in the frame of Techno
Holistic Medicine the bees become the representation the forgotten and exhausted masses of the
working class.
By drawing these connections, Keogh asks us to step into the shoes of those who are
exhausted by a capitalist society, and find themselves struggling to connect for one reason or
another. Are not the ones who work the hardest, on the hardest jobs, who need more relief, some
compassion, and attentive eyes telling them that it need not be that hard and that all they need is
already within themselves? If we think of it in this frame, the role the medium starts to play gains
massively in importance. The influencers tend to close the camera tight on their face, leaving the
viewer little other option than to stare at them right in the eyes - often enhanced by bright light or
colored contact lenses as well. It then becomes easy to get lost in what they say, as they intensely
look straight at their audience, establishing a direct relationship as if they were talking one-on-one,
and acted exclusively in the viewer’s best interest.
In an attempt to create immediate intimacy and trust, the screen becomes the face that
whispers and talks to us, as we are made forget that truly we cannot answer back. Keogh at times
doubles the video in her work, helping us recognize the evolution of the talking head format into
different media, through television, computer and smartphone screen. While the television still
carried some communal aspects, the laptop set the ground for the creation of a digital space
independently from time and space. Like this, the possibility of an individual, remote encounter
through technology became tangible. Nevertheless, it is only with the forthcoming of the
smartphone that the possibility of an immediate intimacy was achieved. Because of the
smartphone’s versatile mobility that truly frees us from spatial necessities, thus finally facilitating
the sense of physical and intimate closeness.
In these regards, Techno Holistic Medicine aims to show us how one can manipulate their
image in the attempt to create this sense of confidence, and how that can be artificially generated
in itself. This, in return, brings us to reflect on the ways in which the consumerist system has
altered our communal intimacy. In a society that constantly pushes for our means of production
and productivity to run at full speed all the time, it should not come as unexpected to see that some
people fall for promises of easy money. Just like hyper-connectivity came to replace intimacy,
words like ‘manifesting’ and ‘channeling’ entered mainstream language as quick ways to wealth.
And while we truly have all the rights to question them and their promoters, Keogh invites us to
embrace the fascination with it to understand how, why and on whom it works.
Techno Holistic Medicine critiques a capitalist society that systematically forgets to look into
the eyes of its working force, to instead push it towards consumption and isolation. And to do so,
Keogh abandons the intellectual, bourgeois perspective to side with the most vulnerable members
of our community. We are asked to do the same, and make the effort to compassionately look
behind the curtain. Then we will be able to recognize some of ourselves in the distressing appeal
of healing culture, and to distinguish the cause from the effect. And only then, perhaps, other
solutions will become possible.