Kerry Tribe’s film Standardized Patient, which was commissioned by SFMoMA in 2017 and is currently at 1301PE, is a filmic expression of thoughtful storytelling centered on a controlled social environment that is often unexplored within the wooly conceptual arts—the doctor-patient relationship. This film’s storyline is based on a type of evaluation medical professionals undergo to complete their training using hired actors called standardized patients (SPs). The SPs describe their symptoms to medical trainees while also providing constructive feedback and grading. Hence those who diagnose mirror the diagnosticians.

Kerry Tribe, Standardized Patient (2017). Film still. Courtesy of the artist and 1301PE.

Tribe’s precise filmic treatment of scenes, textures and micro expressions carves an isolated effigy from the relatively run-of-the-mill experience of doctor visits. Her deftness with camera angles and lighting, as well as the propulsion of performative acting within her characters’ expressions, such as side-long glances and pauses, creates a measured impression of the archipelagic thinking that occurs when groups of people come together to study one another, perceive and overcome misperception towards “accurate” and respected ascertainment. SP bridges the interiority of its subjects with their exterior network of interactions in a coldly detached fashion at times, given the film’s sterile venue of medical rooms. Needless to say this group dynamic goes beyond Tribe’s specific context.

Kerry Tribe, Standardized Patient (2017). Film still. Courtesy of the artist and 1301PE.

A meditation on how humans communicate with one another within feedback systems, SP reveals group interaction as a process in which evaluating interlocutors negotiate ground, wherein plain prose communication results in the remote feeling of being understood “enough.” These communication endeavors conjure a “vector of truth’s nearness,” as William Falkner wrote, rather than straight-forward truths and revelations. SP is an acknowledgment of both our intellectual and emotional lack and fulfillment in intersubjective consensus; by filming clinical scenes that build dialogue around obscure sensations and symptoms of the body, this film demonstrates that while we are not a “hive mind,” no man is an island. We might mysteriously empathize with one another by yielding the stiff tools of scientific language so we can define our potentially inconclusive, emotional centers.

Kerry Tribe, “Standardized Patient,” March 24 – May 5, 2018, at 1301PE, 6150 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. www.1301pe.com