For Anesthesia Protocols, Paula Gogola presents new diptychs. The compositions include erect figures that stand and sit in liminal spaces that are both mundane and cosmic, and the bodies are inclined toward the massive ornamentations in the areas of their spinal cords. It is a prehistoric interface, all monochrome. The assembled wall-hanging objects of Olbram Pavlíček are devices, or mirrors, or cursed pieces of furniture that imprint and envelop body parts. Produced with upholstery, they accommodate bodies while simultaneously stretching them into unnatural poses. These are scenographies of posthuman reproductive labour. Gogola's figurated spines and Pavlíček's small torture-wellness machines, stretching bodily verticalities in eerie and obscure settings, evoke speculative genealogies of spinal catastrophism.

In the theoretical pessimist horror of Spinal Catastrophism, Thomas Moynihan examines the spinal cord as an archaeological media object. The spinal-radial axis grounding the body becomes a culmination of the evolutionary externalisation of organs. Here the spine emerges as a geological archive of planetary trauma, a chronological artefact shaped through adaptation to the deep time of evolution. The erect figure belongs to the state. The Kantian self proudly straightens itself up in order to govern and be governed. Unlike uprightness, the body that exceeds power is always inclined; it is always in relation. In this way, Gogola's figures incline toward each other, toward the environment, and toward the frame. Pavlíček's obscure objects trace bodily imprints onto soft and abrasive surfaces. They share the complexity of the temporal and the inhuman. Inclination stands for scoliosis, for diagrams melting under a heavy sun, for liminal spaces, and for sickness.