Image descriptions
This page provides a plain-text version of the visual descriptions and captions for The Staph Aureus Experience™, a digital gallery of Polaroid-style collages by Alice van Rooyen / Apple Violet Robot.
The gallery itself presents the images in a shuffled order. This page lists the descriptions in the order used by the project data file.
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Image 1
Description: Collage showing a hand with red tissue-like strands being extracted with tweezers.
Caption reads: Alien brains coming out of my hand. No one warned me not to look!
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Image 2
Description: Collage showing a pale hand with altered finger positioning against a dark red background.
Caption reads: My altered paw
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Image 3
Description: Collage showing a muscle-bound male nurse holding a bed pan beside a hospital bed, with a patient's naked bottom showing.
Caption reads: For one night only – certified best ass wiper!
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Image 4
Description: Collage showing a patient figure excluded from a room full of people - the figure has a broken-heart shape on the body.
Caption reads: The relational asymmetry might be necessary, but it's no less brutal for that.
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Image 5
Description: Collage showing a bed bound patient hooking a leg over the bed rail to steady themselves while sheets are change. A pile of laundry lies on the floor.
Caption reads: The physics of the bed change.
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Image 6
Description: Collage showing a patient in bed, with a large yellow wet patch, lying in front of a crowded waiting area.
Caption reads: Abandoned in radiology, not yet able to walk, I had to wet the bed in a full waiting area. I've dreamed many versions of this since.
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Image 7
Description: Collage showing an open mouth containing a dry desert landscape with pyramids and camels.
Caption reads: "Hmmm ... a bit dry"
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Image 8
Description: Collage showing a seated figure with dark hair and wearing blue scrubs, knees raised.
Caption reads: My favourite resident doctor and I discussing the price we can get for my kidney on the black market – best quality, proven resilience
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Image 9
Description: Collage showing a patient's arm with blood being taken, and more blood collection vials in a dish on the table.
Caption reads: Endless stabby blood draws
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Image 10
Description: Collage showing nurse's hands holding a brightly coloured pillowcase with a large red bloodstain.
Caption reads: The bloody pillow. Karen duly took it home, chucked the ruined pillow, rescued the case, neither of us thinking to ask where the blood had come from.
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Image 11
Description: Collage showing a plate of breakfast food on a table with arms on either side. One arm has a hand splint and a PICC line.
Caption reads: Breaking out for Sunday breakfast at Claremont Tea House.
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Image 12
Description: Collage showing a call button in purple and orange.
Caption reads: The Sacred Call Button
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Image 13
Description: Collage showing a figure in a red t-shirt lying behind a curtain with legs raised for a pelvic exam.
Caption reads: "Well, this is inappropriate!" The bizarre erotic stylings of catheter insertion.
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Image 14
Description: Collage showing a blue prize rosette with the number one in the centre.
Caption reads: First prize in the delicate flower show. Early convalescence was really hard but I only cried a little.
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Image 15
Description: Collage showing a man in a blue jumper with his arm raised to show a hole in the arm scye.
Caption reads: Doctors are hole-in-the-jumper human after all! Huh?!
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Image 16
Description: Collage showing a doctor in scrubs with a stethoscope. His head is a large red umbrella.
Caption reads: A medical Magritte moment I was too high on bacteria to really enjoy until I made this picture.
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Image 17
Description: Collage showing a black-and-white cat lying on a red cushion, with small birth and death dates written in the lower corner.
Caption reads: My beautiful Edgar. It felt like a price exacted by the gods for my survival.
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Image 18
Description: Collage showing a figure wearing baggy blue dungarees beside a weighing scale.
Caption reads: Fat girl dungarees on a less fat girl
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Image 19
Description: Collage showing a figure standing beside a hospital bed surrounded by grey and black shapes.
Caption reads: "I think I'm just going to sit down"
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Image 20
Description: Collage showing a gloved hand pulling on an deep blue medical glove.
Caption reads: An MBE for the person who chose ultramarine for NHS gloves – a tiny, daily delight.
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Image 21
Description: Collage showing a person with long dark hair and a red jumper standing at the foot of a hospital bed. The very pale feet of the patient can be seen in the bed.
Caption reads: My consultant with the hair-stroking energy and understatement: "We're very pleased you came in when you did."
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Image 22
Description: Collage showing a visitor seated beside a hospital bed with a patient arm visible.
Caption reads: "We don't need to talk, I just want to know that you're safe"
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Image 23
Description: Collage showing a naked figure lying on a hospital bed with a hospital gown on the floor.
Caption reads: Naked again! Reprimanded for taking my gown off in my sleep – because there are male nurses! Temperature raging!
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Image 24
Description: Collage showing a nurse dressed as a ninja, holding a syringe and making a peace sign.
Caption reads: Ninja Nurse
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Image 25
Description: Collage showing a person in baggy blue trousers leaving a dark room that contains mobility aids including crutches and a frame.
Caption reads: "Are you taking any of these?" "No, I don't need them."
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Image 26
Description: Collage showing a pharmacy bag, medication boxes and pill blister packs.
Caption reads: When you leave the party with a goody bag – NHS style
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Image 27
Description: Self-portrait collage wearing glasses, dungarees, gold hoop earrings, and a blue headscarf tied like a pirate bandana.
Caption reads: In my pirate era – no one told me all my hair would fall out. No me gusta!
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Image 28
Description: Collage showing a figure beside a hospital bed with two surgical drains hanging from the body on long tubes.
Caption reads: Taking the pus ferrets for a walk
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Image 29
Description: Collage with a female torso with a black Mandelbrot set as pubic hair, on a pink background and the words "the recursion monologues".
Caption reads: When you have days to consider what differentiates recursion from rumination (hint: Δ ≠ 0).
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Image 30
Description: Collage showing several satsumas with leaves against a blue background.
Caption reads: Weights + Measures according to my radiologist: 1 psoas abscess = 1 satsuma; 1 abscess fluid extraction = a shot of whisky ... no! ... a proper (Scottish) shot ... no ... an espresso!
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Image 31
Description: Collage showing a figure falling near a hospital bed, with a knocked over walker and faeces on the floor.
Caption reads: The shitscapades! I fell trying to reach the walker because I didn't know I couldn't stand. I got such a telling off – because sliding around in your own excrement apparently isn't enough!
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Image 32
Description: Collage showing a stylised medical textbook illustration of pink circular bacterium.
Caption reads: I didn't choose the Staph life, the Staph life chose me.
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Image 33
Description: Collage showing a patient in a hospital, their belly rolls are on display and marked with two blue dots.
Caption reads: Marked up for a stoma – the notes said my fat belly made it harder to pick a spot – rude!
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Image 34
Description: Collage showing a hand reaching through grapes on a tray table, with a T-SQL textbook partly hidden underneath.
Caption reads: Busted! My consultant rooting through my tray table and discovering my T-SQL textbook hidden under grapes
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Image 35
Description: Collage showing a patient walking down a hospital corridor, wearing a hospital gown and carrying their clothes in a red bag.
Caption reads: Thoroughly demoted: walking back from my MRI, because someone else needed my wheelchair more than me
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Image 36
Description: Collage showing a person at home on the sofa, wearing pyjamas, under a blanket with a cup of tea.
Caption reads: Tea and Tinnitus
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Image 37
Description: Collage showing a self-portrait of smiling face without glasses, with very messy hair, and missing dentures.
Caption reads: The toothless maw. Happy to see all my favourites, happily oblivious to my goblin appearance.
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Image 38
Description: Collage showing two unicorn heads facing each other, one with a pink horn and cats eye glasses, the other with a blue horn and square glasses.
Caption reads: "Bonjour!" – "Buon giorno!"
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Image 39
Description: Collage showing a red brick university building under a blue sky with clouds.
Caption reads: Walking practice through the university
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Image 40
Description: Collage showing the back of a seated figure working at a computer screen.
Caption reads: Vibe coding and essay writing – taking 'Snakey' seriously helped me give the whole experience its due weight.
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Image 41
Description: Collage showing a paper doll surrounded by paper clothes including underwear items, a pink gown, and a white gown.
Caption reads: What to wear??
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Image 42
Description: Collage showing a winking clinician's face against a dark background.
Caption reads: The radiologist, who really, really did not want to be drawn into Alice's nonsense, but still rewarded "that's the best shoulder drain I've received today".
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Image 43
Description: Collage showing a Wordle-style puzzle grid in a black frame.
Caption reads: The Great Wordle Heist. October 3rd 2025. A day that will live on in infamy.
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Image 44
Description: Collage showing a self-portrait with a yellow jaundiced face with glasses.
Caption reads: Yellow Fellow
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Image 45
Description: Collage showing a small distant figure in a blank white room, with a wall clock on one side.
Caption reads: Yohaku