‘In Fiona Davies installation and performance, Racing Patience ICU the participant of asked to sit in a carnival tent to play a game of life or death. Just as a carnival fortune teller sits across and tells the sitter their future in the hope for affirmation, Davies challenges her opponents to confront the unknown. ‘

The game of life and death referred to by Knezevic was developed from the older game Racing Patience. In that game the relatively sedate game of Patience is played competitively without any concept of taking turns and can become physical and rough and there is no sense of fair play. It is not a social game. It is extremely competitive as each player tries to get their card onto the stacks in the centre. It requires an ability to focus on many things which are changing all at the same time and not necessarily in a good way.

In Racing Patience ICU there are just two players. One draws a central card that describes the patient stats when entering ICU. Starting at the same time one player represents the ICU team trying to bring the patient back into the normal or survivable ranges for blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygenation and rate of respiration. The other player, death is attempting to take the patient out of those survivable range. The cards have plus or minus numbers that can be attributed to one of the four sets of data. Both players have to track the four parameters, keep a rough tally in their head of the changes in the patient stats as each card is added to one of the four stacks. The players will rotate through their own cards in groups of three able to play the top card only. The card that may save the situation or cause the death of the patient may be just out of reach and there is no time to consider the ethics of particular interventions that drive swinging changes in the patient’s statistical signs. At the end of a few minutes the game is called and a countback determines who has won.

Racing patience ICU rules of the game .JPG

In the card game Racing Patience ICU there are two players. One draws a central card that describes the patient's stats when entering ICU. Starting at the same time, one player represents the ICU team trying to bring the patient back into the normal or survivable ranges for blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygenation and rate of respiration. The other player sometimes called Death, attempts to take the patient out of those survivable ranges. Each player attempts to track the four parameters, keeping a rough tally in their head of the changes in the patient stats as each card is added to one of the four stacks. The players turn over their cards in groups of three, being able to play the top card only. It is not a social or fair game. It is extremely competitive and can be rough and physical as each player tries to get their card onto the stacks in the centre. Importantly there is no concept of taking turns. It requires an ability to focus on many things which are changing, all at the same time. At the end of five minutes an alarm sounds. The game is over. On a count-back the winner is decided. The winner is who determined whether the patient during that particular five minutes was in or out of the survivable range for the four vital signs. Who knows what happened in the next five minutes and if the ethics of particular interventions that drove the often widely swinging changes of the parameters were ever able to be considered.

2018

Racing Patience ICU, 2018, canvas, paint, printed material and found objects, size variable

Photo Credits - Alex Gooding, Isobel Markus-Dunworth and Video Credit - Danica Knezevic

Exhibition and Performance History

Holding Space - A MAPBM Kiosk 3 x 6 project, The Kiosk, Katoomba, Australia, 20 to 27 January 2018

Dr Karl goes West - Joan Sutherland Arts Centre, Penrith, Australia 15th August 2018

In Translation a SCA Curatorial Lab - Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 18th October -3rd November 2018

Cast a cold eye on life, on death: The Remake: Medicalised Death in ICU - SCA Gallery University of Sydney exhibition and second stage of the performative lecture from 10-18th May 2019

Groundswell Conference - Fairmont resort, Leura, Australia, 14th October 2019

Memorial / Time of Death No 3.

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