The Horror Autotoxicus is an ongoing interdisciplinary series by AM Hoch including paintings on canvas, original text and horror ballads, which will ultimately be combined in installations and film. For now, two of the three triptychs envisioned have been completed, and one ballad, entitled “The Punishment of the Fathers,” has been recorded in collaboration with composer Joshua Haugen, with audio editing by Irene Ruscelli.
The Horror Autotoxicus was the name first given to autoimmune disease by the German scientist Paul Ehrlich in the 19th century. Disease, like poetry, operates on many levels at once, working on the miniscule and the grand, the physical and the emotional all at once.
Autoimmune disease is a “ready-made” artifact of post-colonial, post-industrial society—the most apt embodiment of our culture’s pathologies, as hysteria was for Victorian culture. For me, it is not only the perfect metaphor for talking about the ills of our society, and myself, but also offering a key to understanding what is still working at the heart of us.
oil on canvas, 70.9 x 78.7 inches, 180cm x 200cm, 2021/2022
oil on canvas, 78.7 x 70.9 inches, 200cm x 180cm, 2021
