Hacking the Disease

Salvatore Iaconesi’s Sense-Making Quest for an Open-Source Cure for Cancer

Abstract

The experience of illness, as narrated by those who suffer from it, can provide significant insight for medical and health professionals, helping them to understand what their patient is going through, from a psychological and existential point of view. These narratives can also help to bridge the distance between science and experience, and to heal the gap that divides the sick person from the rest of society. The work that Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico have done with their performance La cura (The cure) – started when he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012 – takes this kind of narrative and selfreflexive experience even further, in order to explore the relationship between culture, technology and biology, with the aim of redefining the meaning of cure (and, consequently, of illness and health) in a collective and inclusive way. La cura can thus be seen as a piece of work that, by belonging to the Medical Humanities, can also take a step forward in building a theoretical and practical dialogue between different disciplines in order to respond to the challenges of our digital (and biotechnological) society.