Pulse

Rob  Godman in collaboration with Dr. Giampaolo Martinelli - 2022

Stereo Audio Recording, via headphones
Duration – 11 hours and 12 minutes

Pulse is a high resolution unedited real-time audio recording of a thoraco abdominal aneurysm repair performed at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, May 2022. Created in collaboration with Dr. Giampaolo Martinelli, Consultant Cardiothoracic Anaesthetist, the work focuses our attention on the ambient sound - room tone and associated noise, surgical paraphernalia and human interaction found within an operating theatre. By exploring repetition and variation, rhythm and further subdivisions of time over the micro and macro structure, it aims to demystify this largely hidden environment as it unfolds during the day.

The work runs from 07.45 hours (the time the operation began) and concludes just over eleven hours later, as it did at the time of the procedure.