I found this fascinating piece today. It was a visionary part of The Royal College of The Arts’ Summer Show. The artist, Revital Cohen, created a showcase of futuristic relations in which the animal discovers a whole new role in our lives, one of keeping us alive, being intertwined with medical equipment.

“The first part of the project revolves around the concept of the ‘Respiratory Dog’. The vast majority of greyhounds bred for racing are killed after their short career at the track ends (an estimated 7,500 to 20,000 were euthanised in 2003 alone). Revital advocates training the animal to become a respiratory assistance dog instead of simply killing it: the greyhound’s lung movements are converted into mechanical ventilation as it runs on a treadmill, the treadmill itself functioning as both interface and on/off switch. Rapid chest movements pump a bellows that pushes air into the patient’s lungs, establishing a mutually reliant relationship between man and animal - both keeping each other alive.”

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“The second scenario envisions substituting a dialysis machine with a sheep. Revital’s scenario imagines that through a complex medical process toxins might be removed from the patient’s body through a sheep connected via blood lines to the subject and placed at the bedside at night. During the day the dialysis sheep is allowed to roam in the donor patient’s garden, grazing to cleanse its kidneys and drinking water containing salt minerals, calcium and glucose. During the night waste products from the patient’s blood are pumped out of the body, filtered through the sheep’s kidney and the blood is returned, cleaned, to the patient.”

I can’t seem to get the pictures on here, but please check out the link. They are some of the most striking and thought provoking images I’ve seen in a long time. (May even rival Jan’s dog watching porn on a laptop post : P )