Look and learn as Rita seeks the answers to searching questions about losing control

I watched the recently broadcast BBC series, The Wonders of the Solar System. It reminded me of my teens, a period of my life when I was trying to understand the universe we live in.

I remember asking myself questions such as: if the world began with the big bang, what existed before it? And could there be life on other planets?

I have always asked a lot of questions. As a younger Catholic child, I remember asking the priests: how could God have created the world in seven days, if biology suggests it evolved over millions of years?

And if that part of the Bible is to be understood as an allegory, who decides what is an allegory and what should be understood literally?

Later, I became fascinated by psychology, by the human mind and by questions such as: why do we fall in love? And why do I sometimes feel so down that I want to die?

Today, I am still asking questions. I am not a physicist, a theologist, or a psychologist. I am, however, an artist who takes her body as her raw material and, consequently, who asks questions about the body and the way it is culturally understood.

For a while now, I have been interested in bodies which are culturally less visible than others.

For instance, the overweight body is not as visible as the ideal weight body, and so people are encouraged to "cover up" if they are overweight.

I am epileptic, and the epileptic body is also a body which is culturally less visible that others.

Indeed, I perform this invisibility every time that I hide in a toilet cubicle to have an epileptic seizure. I ask myself: "why do I feel I need to hide?" Is it because I am aware of the vulnerable position that I would be in if I had a seizure in public? And is this vulnerability linked to voyeurism, the act of observing someone who is not aware they are being observed?

The Involuntary Dances work (Bradford Playhouse, 2009) was a way of asking these questions. The work involved me coming off epilepsy medication, and then spending a period of 24 hours inducing an epileptic seizure.

I wanted to ask questions about what would happen if I exposed this invisible body of mine? What would happen if, for once in my life, I had a very public seizure?

Another question concerned the guilt associated with voyeurism.

Many of us have been in a position where we want to look at something (for instance, an epileptic seizure, or a car accident) but we know we shouldn't. So we often slow down on the motorway just enough to take a glance at it.

What we don't often do is stop, get out of the car and have a really good look at the accident. Why? And what would we learn if we did?

Involuntary Dances was my way of asking this question. This was my way of saying: Do stop the car. Do get out. Do have a good look. It is ok. I am ok with it. Now what do you see? What have you learned?

Involuntary Dances was the first in a trilogy of works investigating these ideas.

The second in the trilogy (She's Lost Control) poses new questions (the need for controlling one's environment to avoid an epileptic seizure), as well as continuing to ask questions around voyeurism.

It also makes links between my experience as an epilepsy sufferer and that of the well-known Joy Division lead singer, Ian Curtis.

So to return to my initial question: why bother with controversial art? Art is a way of asking questions of our culture, in the same way that physics asks questions of our universe.

No artist sets out to make "controversial art" in the same way that no scientist sets out to make "controversial science". But sometimes a piece of art (or a new scientific breakthrough) questions the limits of what we know already and then it is labelled "controversial".

So if by "controversial art" we understand art which asks pertinent questions of human beings and their culture, then I will always strive to make "controversial art".

The second work in the trilogy (She's Lost Control), is being shown at Yorkshire Dance in Leeds (April 30, 7.30pm). Audience limited to 40 people and tickets can be booked by calling 07891678585.

History of a trilogy

She's Lost Control (2010) is the second in a trilogy of works and it concerns itself with the healthy body, the body which is not in an epileptic state, and behaviours of avoidance or control which may keep the body in that state.

It addresses both my experience as an epilepsy sufferer and that of other well-known sufferers.

Created by an award-winning choreographer (me, in collaboration with filmmaker Lucy Barker, poet Ryan Ormonde, and set and lighting designers Matt Sykes-Hooban and James Harrison), She's Lost Control is an immersive dance installation.

The audience takes an active role in choosing how to experience the work, by navigating a labyrinth of enclosures.

Each enclosure presents the audience with a task, an interactive poem, a film projection, a duet.

Towards the end, the immersive structure opens itself up to reveal the network of physical links between its elements.

The last in the trilogy (Sem Corpo, 2011), will integrate footage from both preceding works, and will explore the drug (the anti-convulsant medication), and questions around the drug research process.