“In the historical anatomy theatre, the body is not only demonstrated but also performed. Anatomy involves cutting into bodies, studying their interiors, and performs constative acts that produce knowledge by means of a public demonstration of ‘how it is’ with the body […]

these constative acts of producing the body ‘as it is’ can be analysed in terms of three different positions, or persons, involved. The first-person speaking is the anatomist, demonstrating the body to an audience. The audience takes the position of the second person, the one addressed. The body demonstrated to this audience is the third person, the one who is talked about, but not speaking to him – or herself. This third person is dead, a mute object there to prove the authority of the anatomist”

(Bleeker, Maaike. Anatomy Live: Performance and the Operating Theatre. 2008. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. p.15).