In the aftermath of Covid-19, this book chapter presents new research into the virus as metaphor, considering applied uses for an examination of its spread, mutation and its ambitions. Drawing on expanded field art practice and the medical, this research uses models from art practice to reconsider the site of the pandemic home and body as host, referring to Susan Sontag’s work, 'Illness as Metaphor'.

Expanded field art practice - spatialised, event-like and already fluent in the metaphorical, alongside notions of connectivity, the breaking down of boundaried silos and of querying the architectures of production - provides valuable shared languages with the virus’ reach and behaviours. This exchange is useful in that it can provide critical forms of visualisation, beyond data exposing and iterating.

This chapter combines visual practice, critical theory and auto-theoretical writing.