At the beginning of the new millennium, Jakob Senneby squinted at a grayscale image of his brain while a doctor traced a series of white blobs on the screen. His doctor told him that these figures, captured by an MRI scan, were “white spots”: signs of damage to the nervous system that are associated with multiple sclerosis. In the following years, Senneby—one half of the artist duo Goldin+Senneby—cycled through experimental and largely ineffectual treatments, tracking the progress of the disease with each scan, with each crop of “attacks” launched by his immune system. As he lost faith in the drugs, Senneby learned that the white spots have proven to be a source of immense, hidden value: a booming economy is based on visualizing, counting, and measuring the spots in the development of pharmaceuticals. The drugs have become more and more successful in treating the white spots in the image, but not in addressing the onset of permanent disability—the most critical consequence of the disease. Nevertheless, the value of the market for treatments has reached nearly $30 billion per year.

For Swallow Image, Goldin+Senneby will give a presentation on the evolution of “sick images”—depictions of illness that obscure the accounts of patients—and the lucrative market for MS drugs. The event picks up on Triple Canopy’s publication of two related works by Goldin+Senneby: "Spot Price", a blockchain-based artwork that links scans of Senneby’s diseased brain to the value of the drugs targeting such images; and “Regions of Interest,” an essay on living as a medical specimen and source of profit for drug companies.

Presented at: “White Spots for Sale: A Higher Seminar on sick images”, Royal Institute of Art c/o Hagströmer Library, Stockholm, 20 September, 2023. https://vimeo.com/882435979 (password: spotprice)

”Swallow Image”, Triple Canopy, New York, December 10, 2024. https://canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/swallow-image(Upcoming) “Swallow Image”, Keynote at 7th Nordic STS Conference, STS in and out of the Laboratory, Stockholm, June 11-13, 2025https://www.nordicsts.se/keynote-speakers/