http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Group Therapy Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:29:17 +0000 a-n rss generator a-n The Artists Information Company and contributors edit@a-n.co.uk technical@a-n.co.uk http://www.a-n.co.uk/img/logo.gif http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I am half way through this book: Touched with Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison. She's a manic depressive and psychologist based in the US, who clearly has an intense interest in documenting the relationship between creativity and psychosis. So far she has talked a lot about Byron and about that almost cliched supposition that artists are more likely to be affected by a mental illness. I distrust this perspective a little given that some of the most eloquent and capable individuals that I know are artists. She talks about one particular study where:"The highest rates of psychiatric abnormality were found in poets (50 percent) and musicians (38 percent), painters (20 percent), sculptors (18 percent) and architects (17 percent)."I guess my task through this blog and current thread of thought is extracting the outdated romantic perspective on the insane Byronesque artist and viewing it from a more contemporary perspective, both in terms of the artistic media used (digital and new technologies) and the way in which we understand the issues around mental health.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 To complete this inauguration of this blog, I just want to quickly talk about Kim Noble, whose work initially got me thinking about technology, psychology and being a 'mentalist' (his word, not mine). Kim is doing his performance 'Kim Noble Will Die" at the Bluecoat in Liverpool on the 14th May: come and see it if you can. The piece is described as a mulimedia suicide note and basically takes one of his manic depressive breakdowns as the subject of an hilarious and excruciating performance. I went down to Oxford University to hear him speaking as part of a panel on "The Inspired Illness: exploring the links between mental disorders and creativity in society". It was wonderful to see him present his controversial work in the middle of Oxford University, encouraging a slightly bemused Oxford student to call his Mum and ask her about his illness. Incidentally his Mum denies that he has an illness and says thats 'just how he is'. I wonder if its actually quite difficult for a parent to consider their offspring has a permanent mental disorder such as bi-polar?Anyway, what's great about Kim's work is that he completely subverts the reality TV aesthetic of the media, giving us far too much 'reality' about his chaotic breakdowns. It exploits the 'fly on the wall aesthetic' of video blogging to the point of being highly disturbing. Check this link for a more eloquent commentary than mine. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/co... And follow this link to buy tickets for his show in Liverpool http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Today I came across this video by Sid Volter. Its called Seamless and I love it for the fact that it overlays a narrative about loss of contact with the real world over google mapping footage: the ultimate device for total strategic control over our environment. The text documents the decent into depression "its like a kind of falling, falling out of sync with things. Its as if everyday life has a rhythm. But you don't normally notice it, its seamless". You can see it here http://sidvolter.blogspot.com/I suppose that we take technology for granted as a means of exerting more control over the world around us, for connecting more quickly with the important people and places in our lives and pulling them into closer proximity. However the omnipotence of technology has also been subverted in quite sinister ways by people who have taken their own lives live via web cam or mobile phone. I wonder if technology can actually help us to loose touch with reality at times?.......... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been thinking about what I would ultimately like to achieve through this blog and the project that it documents. I think that the arts/technology/mental health is a fascinating topic that I would like to develop through further study and in my professional life as a producer and curator. This is certainly a topic which I can be passionate about and I have already proposed to contribute some programing on dance and mental health to the Bluecoat later this year, which I am excited about.... More importantly, I think I'd like to open up an opportunity for artists and audiences to talk about mental health and all of the colour and darkness that a bout of mania or a slow slide into depressive disorder can cause. This is still absolutely a taboo issue and I know this because I've been terrified to tell any of my professional (and even personal) contacts about my own experiences. I wont subvert the taboo with one show, but I might start a discussion that will help make a slight shift. I read Darkness Visible by William Styron over the weekend. Styron was the author of highly acclaimed books such as Sophie's Choice and fell into a bout of serious depression in his early sixties. He's pretty convinced of the link between artists and depressive illness, identifying long lists of his fellow writers (Albert Camus and Anne Sexton among them) who have been affected. I am still looking for scientific evidence of this link as most of my reading so far has been anecdotal, but Stryron's a powerful author and this book made compelling reading. The most entertaining part (of what is an otherwise a very dark text) was his story of being so exhausted and haphazard on the night when he won The Prix Mondial Cino del Duca in Paris, that he lost the cheque for his prize money worth £25,000!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Im going to a Feldenkrais workshop on Sunday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldenkrais_Method This is a form of body therapy used to help improve problems with physical movement and patterns of negative thinking. It was first brought my attention when I came across the work of George Khut and his project Thinking Through the Body http://thinkingthroughthebody.net/about/ where it has been used as a method of augmenting the interface between body and technology and opening up the role of the body in new media arts practice. The workshop is happening next Sunday and I am hoping it will sort me out after the two days that  I have just spent bed ridden with a miserable hang over. Its approaching my 27th Birthday and I am wondering if I am beginning to feel my age....eight glasses of wine was clearly too many!It will be nice to get to grips with something practical, to think more about how physical and creative forms might come together, but using my body rather than my head! I'm all too aware of my tendency to live in my head and to withdraw from physical experience, something that I think is happening more in society in general.  Artists like George feel really important in the way that they combine technology and body therapy as an anecdote to the desensitisation I think we all feel to some extent through spending endless hours sitting at computers, driving in cars and watching TV. It feels to me that integrating the body and the senses to our relationship with technology is absolutely vital, drawing emphasis away from what technology can do and toward how it can make us feel.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I am heading to London this afternoon, to spend a couple of days checking out galleries and having a bit of a mooch. I will be taking things steady given that yesterday afternoon found me at the hospital having a small cervical biopsy due to some dodgy looking cells that the doctors have found. The procedure is a total trauma that leaves me feeling faint and delicate. None the less when I wondered out of the hospital after treatment yesterday I had to stop and think...... what would I do if the worst happened and these dodgy cells did become cancerous? Suddenly life seems a little more urgent and a lot more precious. I met an amazing artist on Friday who felt like a real embodiment of some kind of wonderful life force and someone I could instantly admire. Being somewhere over 50 (!) Bisakha Sarker of dance company Chaturangan http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~ef/Bisakha/ is still dancing, programming and cooking with a fervor would put most of us younger artists to shame! She has proposed to host an event at the Bluecoat in December called Memory and Meaning : On Dance and Dementia. Dementia is a subject that sits very close to my heart, given that both of my Grandmothers developed it in the latter years of life. What I remember from that period of time was the strain not only on my Grandmothers but on the families around them: on my parents and even on myself at a small age. Bisakha's conference programming seems progressive and interesting both in it's structure and content and in the way that she wants to consider how the arts might be used to offer support to the families of dementia suffers as well as the patients directly.I am hoping to work with her quite closely on the conference as I believe it will help invigorate this Group Therapy project, which I have not really got my teeth into as quickly as I would have liked! A period of intensive research and consideration of a strategy for approaching a couple of mental health charities is needed when I return from my London trip. HOWEVER.... today is my birthday and I am off to pack my case and go outside into the sunshine. Maybe with a slightly new outlook on life......... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Its been a really busy few weeks. I had a nice time. I passed my driving theory test, I saw art in London, fell over while drunk and met my long time heroine Coco Fusco http://www.thing.net/~cocofusco/work.htm. Now my pockets are empty and it's raining outside. To avoid sinking into a stupor (my recent habit on days like today) I'll attempt to do some research. At present I have two options for the theme of this show.1) Looking at new media arts and it's use in therapeutic contexts for the exploration of mental health issues. There are some super NONE ART examples of this. The only ART example I can think of at the moment is George Khut but there must be more. 2) Depictions, representations and self portraits of 'madness' in using new/multimedia type artforms such as video and the internet. I can think of a few more examples of this and also it seems that I could somehow talk about the bits and bobs that lead me to get excited about this topic such as internet suicides (ie people who kill themselves in chat rooms). AS AN ASIDE: When I was talking to Coco Fusco on Wednesday I brought up the topic of internet suicides. She concluded quite simply that people take their lives online because it gives them the feeling that someone is listening to them. A rather simplistic interpretation, but I suspect that she is right. Anyway I think an allusion to listening or being heard would make a rather nice title for the show.....ANYWAY, the way I propose to move forwards is to think maybe about taking the first idea as something that I can bring to the conference in December with Bisakha and developing the second idea into the visual arts event/show that I mention in the intro to this blog.......Lets see how it develops! TO DO LIST:Write to George Khut re the use of bodily therapeutic principles in new media and interactive arts practice. http://thinkingthroughthebody.net/Contact Ubermorgen http://www.ubermorgen.com/CATALOGUE/ re depictions of psychosis in interdisciplinary arts practice Try and find out a bit more about Bonkers fest esp what was in the gallery programme http://bonkersfest.org/home.html COOL!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106   A very beautiful train of thought about care by George Khut.... http://thinkingthroughthebody.net/2009/06/care/... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Still very much in research mode. Loads of really nice and interesting conversations happening with different artists...... I could spend entire days writing and hitting ideas back and forth...Here is an extract of an email that I wrote to Hans from Ubermorgen this morning in reference to his work Psych|OS that he made after he experienced a 6 month manic breakdown:"Its interesting that the Psych|OS work is based on real experience. I am kind of interested that all of the artists in the show might have somehow experienced a kind of breakdown and regurgitated it artistically. Although this wont be a definite selection criteria, its somehow valuable in giving the show a sense of authority on it's own subject matter, if you see what I mean....?Yes I agree with you about the impacts of technology on mental health. For me its more about what technology takes away: contactfulness, the body, core identity (as opposed to shifting and multiple identities) than its status as a mentally ill thing in itself. But I do see where you draw your metaphor between neural networks and online networks and am going to turn this over in my head over the next few days. If you have any ideas for more reading that I could do about this then please let me know. I am thinking more about writers than examples of artworks.There are also lots of interesting examples (more none art) of therapists and scientists who are using the internet therapeutically to help assist with mental health issues. For example therapists are now using therapy via email to help with social anxiety. Also immersive virtual reality environments are being used to distract patients from physical pain during treatment for excessive physical burns. For me the impact is less about the technology itself and more in how you use it."I fully intend to write more here at some point about therapists who are using internet and virtual technology in their work. Although this is not directly relevant to the show it might be useful for the programming that I intend to propose to Bisakha, somehow.....In other news, Sid Volter sent me a link to a really interesting artist called Gordana Novakovich who keeps a blog on the topic of Neuroplastic Arts. http://www.neuroplasticarts.org/ I need to make some serious time to look at this rather dense blog and website as I think it's really interesting stuff that might tie in with the Thinking Through the Body project.So much to think about......... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 There is an interesting survey doing the rounds at the moment http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?a=100727&d=2637&l... which links schizophrenia and creativity by arguing that both groups have 'lower than expected density' of their D2 receptors. In simple terms this means that these groups are less apt at filtering the most useful information from the least useful, leading them to make unconventional associations. Some people (like neurologist Tim Crow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Crow) think that schizophrenia is the result of physical abnormalities in the brain. Others (like Richard Bentall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bentall) think it is merely at the extreme end of a spectrum of behavioral traits that some individuals develop to cope with or withdraw from difficult and threatening circumstances. Some people also think its both.... and lets face it this is a mighty complex issue and unlikely to be answered by a simple psycological/ biological polarity. In this survey, Professor Fredrik Ullen appears to support the first theory, that levels of psychosis or creativity displayed originate from chemical rather than developmental processes. I have the distinct feeling that there might be a multitude of different ways of proving this theory, both psychological and biological. I had somehow always thought that developmentally a child evolves a creative brain in order to problem solve or imagine alternative realities where the world was better, kinder or easier than the real world that they lived in. For example a child who was lonely might conjure a vivid imaginary friend in order to alleviate loneliness, thus developing the power for creative thinking that carries through into adulthood. I don't think that it needs a tortured childhood to develop this capacity, more that creative thinking might be a strategy developed by the child to find ways of coping with the complicated world. Psychologists like Richard Bentall have argued that psychosis is an extreme from of a coping strategy or a way of dealing imaginatively with extreme hurts and disappointments in childhood. For example a child with an extreme persecutory farther may later in life develop a delusion where he is persecuted by imaginary voices. What I think I am trying to say is that it seems a little simplistic to imagine that the creativity/mental health problem might be explained simply by the physical composition of the brain. There must be a combination of physical, circumstantial and psychological factors that impact on the development of creativity, no?   In other news..... here is my things to do lst for this week....... 1 - read & write to Gordana Novakovich2- Check out all artists on Kim Noble's list of artist suggestions 3 - look up Veronica's suggestion Frank Wildman book on Feldenkrais 4- Write back to George and Maggie 5 - Somya's suggestions? 6- John's suggestions Sean Docherty and Nick Totton 7- Linda Hartley "Wisdom of the Boday Moving" 8- Read up on Welcome Collection and funding opportunities 9- contact New Media Curtating list for artist ideas... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been wrestling a little with the question of the body and interactivity over the past few days. It seems that the classic case of interactivity in art practice using new technology encourages the viewer outside of their body to achieve some kind of merging with a group of other participants or the external depiction of their body and it's function. Classic examples could be something like Rafael Lozano Hemmer's piece for the 2007 Venice Biennale  http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/frequency_and_volume..... Although this piece draws the viewer's attention toward their body by its depiction in shadow and frequency, I would argue that this experience is ultimately externalising and deals in a superficial surface level interactivity. I think what I like about George Khut's Thinking Through the Body project is that it uses methods of body therapy to draw the viewer/user toward their own internal experience, heightening their awareness of their own body and it's functions. This is still an experience of 'interacting' with the art work, but is also a way of becoming more body aware, more internalised and more centered from a different perspective.Sid Volter sent me a link to this  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej9nchHoZkU&feature... piece by Laura Colmenares Guerra. It sparked an interesting conversation where I argued that I felt the piece focused on augmenting the viewer to a more externalised state where they are engaged in interpreting information from outside of the body, rather than focusing on drawing the viewer inward toward their own physical experience. Sid came back with a pretty intelligent argument about how in fact the piece potentially does both. I'm hoping he won't mind me quoting him:"The Guerra video was biofeedback as it was supposed to make you more aware of your breathing and rhythm, and with the group make some kind of group symbiosis. Was it worth the feeling of having a mask / goggles strapped onto you? How effective it was I don't know. I suppose the idea of biofeedback, like the thinking-body group, is to use what is already there and work with it - rather than setting-upon things and demanding things & in false situations like technology tends to do - that's when the separation happens."I think this is a really interesting point. The biorhythm of the viewer's body (breathing) being used both to make the viewer more aware of their own body and to also integrate them with a group. I'd argue that the integration and 'symbiosis' that the piece seeks to encourage/demand is actually something quite unachievable and goes against conditioned social behavior norms for groups of strangers positioned together in a darkened room (sounds a bit cynical doesn't it??). However I do think that the breath could be key as a means of centering and internalizing the bodily experience and I say this more from the position of someone who practices regular yoga than as a spectator for interactive art!!I'm keen to draw out some of this thinking for the conference at the Bluecoat in December. At the moment I have an idea for a programming strand looking at "New Body Therapies" which I think as a title in itself has it's own power in the context of a conference on aging!!  Lets see......... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 How delightful to be Andrew Bryant's choice blog! What a pity that it coincides with my website appearing to have a complete neurotic breakdown and disappear from view all together...... lets hope by Monday morning my designers can restore it to full health!Andrew has brought up a couple of really interesting questions and in my eagerness I will think them through now (in a rudimental way) and maybe return to them in more detail later.  To Andrew's flagging of the polarity between 'outside' and 'inside,' I would also add 'pubic' and 'private' as related concepts. Both sets of polarities refer to a tension between what is projected outwards and is taken by society as useful, acceptable and of inherent value and that which is marginalised or deemed insignificant. The lovely, wondrous Jeanette Winterson speaks at length not only about the intimate healing power of art, but also about it's vital role in healing and sustaining an individual's inner life. "If you believe, as I do, that life has an inside as well as an outside, you will accept that the inner life needs nourishment too. If the inner life is not supported and sustained, then there is nothing between us and the daily repetition of what Wordsworth called ‘getting and spending.’"   http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/journalism_...That curating should act as a devise for augmenting the inner life and bringing it's discourses toward a more public forum is not something I had previously considered (obvious as it may seem when I think about it now). Curating equals making public but also acts as a tool of validation for the artists who are 'curated'. By curating around the topic of mental illness I offer to augment it's discourse into the realms of public recognition and acceptance. Before I get far to excited about this....most of the artists who I am thinking of inviting for the show are all established in some way and are in the process of successfully pursuing artistic careers. Often (as in the case of Kim Noble or Hans Bernhard) they find themselves interrupted by mental illness midway through a successful career where they already have permission to make their inner life public (esp Kim Noble!). It seems then, that there is an ethical question to be considered around which artists the curator validates toward a public forum and those that she ignores and therefore permits ongoing marginalistation. The mentally ill are a marginalised underclass who often collect on the edges of society and to glamorise the issue by only selecting established artists who already have a voice might be conceived as misrepresenting the core issues around mental health.  I imagine that this might be the kind of argument that Andrew is moving toward when he says"art never has the good or bad fortune to be tested in the world."... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I need to find a better phrase than 'mental ill health'. In my previous post I discussed what it might mean to group together artworks created by persons with 'mental health issues' and how this might serve to give a voice to a marginalised group. In response Sid Volter has emailed me to point out that in fact this might serve only to homogenise groups of artists in an unproductive way. "You could argue that by curating a show on mental illness with people showing work that is all bound together under that header, you are picking out a specific quality. Like calling it 'depression' in the first place sort of objectifies it. I would be worried about being identified with such a show, if I were seen as 'a depressed artist' or 'an artist who makes work on depression' because it's singling out a part of myself for no reason! It's all me! What is 'the mentally ill?' What is the 'marginalised underclass?' Would I want to be grouped under that header? All people under that category would be judged on similar ground using the same frame of reference. What if I don't want to be judged on similar ground? It's important from a societal point-of-view to voice things that aren't said, or talked about. I also know the importance of groups to help understand and identify the problem. I liked your interesting comments on validating and questioning standards of acceptance. But you see the problem when trying to group together into one concept. More interesting, I would suggest, is the idea of curating something that focuses more on the variance of individuality rather than the category itself."I think in response to these points I need to make clear how I see the difference between curating a show of successful artists who language their own experiences around 'mental ill health' through their practice and curating a show of artworks by individuals who have no previous training as artists and whose 'mental health' problems have contributed to their becoming socially or economically marginalised. Although I am concerned with the former rather than the latter, I feel a great imperative that  this show should not glamorize or deal carelessly with conditions that can be chronically disabling for some people. Its a statistical fact that a high percentage of people with 'mental health' issues in the UK are from the economic migrant community or from disadvantaged backgrounds. I'm pretty sure that they are not marginalized purely because they have mental health issues, but because of a number of social and economic triggers. I won't be dealing with this issue as part of this exhibition, but it's important to me that I consider the social and economic background as part of the show's evolution.However I emphatically accept Sid's assertion that 'mentally ill' is a too blunt phrase which draws all subtlety out of a complex psychological subject. It strikes me that 'mental ill health' belongs to the language of policy makers and pharmaceutical companies and is conducive to reductive arguments that see people as groups rather than individuals. Better that this show should deal with the complex issue of individual psychologies rather than groups who have 'illnesses' and in a way I think that this is what art is for: expressing experience from a personalised perspective.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I suspect I will return to the discussion covered in my previous post many times during the course of this blog. Its important for me that the arts do not yield too readily to the language of abstraction, while ignoring the socio-economic back drop against which they rest. However its also really important to me that the arts should avoid didacticism or over simplification and should have the courage to challenge existing assumptions or social norms. Part of the curatorial task of this show is to strike the right balance of both understanding and challenging our existing perceptions of 'metal health.'Anyway my previous few entries have been very wordy and I've been thinking that it would probably be a relief for everyone if we have some new pictures to look at and a new artist to think about!! I've been intending to mention a film by Harun Farocki called Immersion http://www.farocki-film.de/immerseg.htm for a little while now, having stumbled across it twice in the past few months: once at Raven Row Gallery and then again at FACT. The work is a collaboration between the artist and the Institute for Creative Technologies, a virtual reality research center which develops immersive therapy for war-veterans suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. It documents a group of ex soldiers as they relive their traumatic experiences suffered during the Iraq war, guided by a therapist who coaxes her subjects into retracing the specific emotional journey that gave rise to the original trauma. Its presented as a split screen installation, with once shot focusing on the virtual reality imagery and another taking in the exchange that occurs between the subject and the therapist. This method of display renders the title highly appropriate as it very much situates the viewer within the work and allows them also to observe the traumatic moment through the virtual reality simulation in tandem with the individual soldiers. The emotional journey of one particular solider had such intensity that I found myself shedding a few tears and mirroring his sensations of fear, helplessness and sadness as he experienced them. The use of virtual reality for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is becoming increasingly common in the USA, partially for soldiers returning from war. This seems to be because the time and money needed for intensive person to person therapy is often unavailable so the government employs technology as a substitute. This blog has some interesting discussion on the topic http://www.noahshachtman.com/archives/002189.html and outlines some very pertinent arguments about how technology can be a blessing or a burden when it interfaces with the human body. Thanks to Somaya Langley http://www.criticalsenses.com/ who originally pointed me toward this study.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 This book looks interesting: Empathic Vision; Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art. Its by Jill Bennett. I've grown a little weary of the 'mental health' terminology struggle and have decided to search for a new discourse with which to frame my thinking on 'emotional and psychological disturbance.'* So I am hoping this text might be useful, particularly as one of it's chapters is called "Insides, Outsides: Trauma, Affect and Art." Its one of the key texts which Lewis Biggs (director of Liverpool Biennial) gave as recommended reading for this year's festival. He says that it...."takes the subject of Trauma (eg Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, N Ireland) as content, but (is) most interesting for the arguments in favour of the priority of formal means (over information / subject / representation) in producing affect and an adequate response to the trauma through art."I'm interested in this tension between form and content as recently I've been thinking a lot about how visual art often prioritises formal discourse over emotion and affect (see for example Lewis's use of the phrase "adequate response" ) I am not sure how relevant this line of thinking is going to be to the Group Therapy project, but I'm thinking that this book will probably help to give me some answers! * This term borrowed from a recent email that I received from Andrew Bryant (thanks Andrew, its a good phrase). I've decided to use it instead of 'mental ill health' for the time being at least.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Its been an intense couple of weeks and it seems that my focus has drifted slightly from this project to other seemingly more pressing matters. Last Tuesday saw me in London for a job interview, after which I decided to spend my afternoon in the pub with my London friends. The wine flowed a little too freely leading me to abandon my last train home in favor of another glass. It was a beautiful feeling arriving for work in Liverpool on Wednesday morning in yesterday's job interview clothes, especially on one of the hottest days of the year! But it was worth it, I have no regrets!In general the world seems to be a brighter place then is was six months ago and I am pleased that I managed the very intense trip down South with no major panic attacks. Therapy seems to finally be helping me make some changes. Its probably the kind of stuff thats undetectable to anyone else, but for me its really important. Its amazing how learned behaviors that a person creates for themselves over the course of a lifetime can be so detrimental, but can build such a clear and incontrovertible image of what reality looks like. Its nice to begin to believe that I am actually living in a kinder world than the one that I had created for myself!I attended a really nice dance and health session at the Bluecoat last night that was run by Liverpool Improvisation Collective. We practiced what the workshop leader called 'toweling:' a form of body therapy where one participant moves the other's limbs using a towel. Sounds very bizarre indeed, but having your limbs lifted and released with such a none invasive method of touch is a bit like floating in water. It left me feeling intensely relaxed! I'm also back in Wales for a day of Feldenkrais with Veronica this weekend. I'm hoping the weather holds out so that I can walk by the river afterwards. So.... I will try to get back on topic with my next post. I'm becoming very aware that I need to expand my research methods in order to find other artists who I might potentially invite to the exhibition. I've got a great shortlist list at the moment, but it's probably not even half of a proper show.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Oh and I forgot to mention.... I've dug out this exhibition catalogue for a Haywood touring exhibition that Jill Bennett mentions in her book Empathic Vision (see post from 24th June). It uses Trauma mostly in relation to a more collective awareness of national and international disasters from what I can tell so far...., but its got some pretty interesting artists in it such as Willie Doherty and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. I'll let you know how it is when I have had a proper read!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I got very frustrated last weekend when I couldn't attend a seminar at the Arnolfini called The Lost Object: On Gesture and Psychoanalysis http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/events/details... due to work commitments. However thanks to the genius of the Arnolfini's marketing department there is now an audio recording of the first part of the afternoon available online which I have been pouring over this morning and am excited to report back on http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/downloads/LostObject71.... I am in the process of pestering the Arnolfini about getting the rest of the presentations online, particularly so that I can hear psychotherapist Professor Jeremy Holmes make his presentation. The seminar referenced the exhibition Otto Zitko and Louise Bourgeois; Me, Myself and I, which has just closed at the Arnolfini. It focused specifically on the relationship between psychoanalysis and drawing but also explored wider themes of memory and the subconscious. Tom Trevor director of the Arnolfini spoke first and discussed the curatorial process that fed into the exhibition. He brought up the very interesting fact that he had considered including Antonin Artaud's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud drawings in the show alongside Zitko and Bourgeois. I have come across Artaud's drawings before but I did not know that many of them were made in the later stages of his life when he was very ill and having electroconvulsive therapy for what are retrospectively thought to be symptoms of schizophrenia. He's of particular interest to me for his writings on theatre and is someone to research at more at some point. Next Ann Coxon Curator at Tate Modern read from her forthcoming book on Louise Bourgeois, making detailed mention of the artists insomnia drawings. As a lifelong insomniac I've always identified with this series of Bourgeois work and it's frenetic style. Coxon specifically drew comparison between these works and the process of meditation, noting that their consistent use of circular patterns and repetitive imagery mirrors a kind of rocking motion and the gentle attempt to lull oneself into sleep. One aspect of Bourgeois life that Coxon particularly foregrounded was her role as a mother. For some reason I had never imagined a woman like Bourgeois having children, but apparently she had three daughters and was famed for saying that a woman can only ever come to understand her own mother when she herself gives birth to children. I guess the cyclical implications of this make sense. A lot of Bourgeois work often portrays issues of nurturing and care, offset against anger and betrayal, which I can see now might express the duality of being both mother and daughter and understanding this difficult relationship from both perspectives. So I am really hoping that the Arnolfini makes the second half of the seminar available and I can continue to chew over these presentations. From what I have heard so far they didn't really succeed in getting to the truely meaty psychoanalytical stuff but hopefully this happens later in the afternoon. To be continued.....!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 The term 'emotional and psychological disturbance' is taking me to interesting places. I've been curled up with a vat of espresso and the latest edition of Mute magazine for the past half hour. I've stopped reading part way through an interview with artist Alexa Wright (interviewer Stefan Szczelkun) as there are a few passages in here which feel are worth documenting. The interview touches on the theme of trauma and emotional affect, an area that I have been reading around quite extensively in the past week or so. There is discussion of Wright's work Killers made in 2002, which situates it's audience in solitary booths and plays back narratives of murders telling the real life stories of how they killed someone and how it made them feel. This is identified in the interview as a moment of transgression, where the viewer is forced to confront something beyond the normal experience of being human and to deal with their own hateful or empathetic response to these confessions. There is a reference made to Kristeva here and her use of the term abject: "According to Kristeva, what causes abjection is anything that disturbs our sense of identity, system or order. Anything, or perhaps anyone, that is in-between, ambiguous or composite."Alexa Wright The interview then brings in the theme of trauma which the interviewer describes as: "An experience that overwhelms one's ordinary emotional abilities - something that is too difficult to process with the resources you have at that time."Stefan Szczelkun Killers takes the transgression of an excepted social norm to territories that encounter emotional extremity or trauma. Of course what it might also highlight is the level of emotional and psychological disturbance that lead to the murderous acts and the level of such disturbance that is translated to the viewer during their encounter with the work. We are in the realm of deviation where shock can equal disturbance and emotions that are are almost too difficult to process. While the piece does not deal overtly with 'mental health' it seems to ask the viewer to consider the extremity of what the disturbed mind can conjure. Yet by instigating the moment of an intimate encounter between artwork and audience it also emphasises the fact that such grotesque acts generate from everyday human minds that function just like our own. In its way the above is only speculation as I have not seen the work and have only read this single interview with Alexa Wright. But it been a useful read in terms of exploring trauma in the emotive encounter and the reconciling psychological extremes into the everyday. Here's a last quote from the artist: "I am interested in exploring the fears and prejudices that set in when we are unable to establish a clear and tangible boundary between what we thing of as 'us', 'really normal' people and 'others'. Alexa Wright All quotes taken from Stefan Szczelkun's interview with Alexa Wright in Mute Vol 2 Issue 16 http://www.metamute.org Listen to audio extracts from Alexa Wright's work Killers here: http://www.alteregoinstallation.co.uk/main_site/ki...... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I'd imagine its impossible to write a blog on the topic of art and mental health without eventually having to consider the practice of art as therapy. So I've come to Belfast his week to hook up with some old friends and to take part in some of the Northern Ireland Group for Art Therapy's summer school. I have two aims for my time here 1) Find out what Art Therapy is and how it is practiced2) Take part in some practical workshops and see if it worksSo far the most compelling presentation on the practice of Art Therapy has been with a lady called Karen Huckvale who practices as an art therapist within the NHS in Devon and who is also an artist. Karen clearly approaches her work from a Jungian perspective as she made constant references to alchemy during her presentation. Jung saw artistic processes as accessing the subconscious through symbols and storytelling and thought that most human struggles originated in material stored in the subconscious. She told a captivating story about an eleven year old girl with an abusive family history, with whom she had spent 30 hours separating glitter and sand in a process that seemed to be symbolic of transition and recovery. Her role as therapist was as a listener and a guide with the materials and art making acting as prompts for discussion and disclosure. This had clearly been a relationship where the development of trust was crucial with the art making providing a way of focusing feelings and images and providing shared goals. Yesterday I also did my third three hour art therapy workshop with a group of six other women. I've been finding these sessions pretty tough going. Its amazing how four years of arts training has in some way damaged my most basic ability to make mess with materials and to be primitively and frantically creative. I could not in any way say that what I have produced has been part of my art practice..... but it has been oddly therapeutic. The pieces that I have made have been about my own experiences of my body, particularly focusing on heart and lungs. This has been stimulated by our workshop leader Saadia Parvez who has been leading us in a number of mediative and breathing techniques as well as more artistic and pictorial processes. Yesterday as a group of six women we all held hands and let out the most liberating and earth shattering scream as a way of rediscovering our voices and connecting with the energy in the group. I've uploaded some of the images that I have produced so far. I feel a strange kind of embarrassment in doing this as they seem so naïve and unaccomplished!! But its also wonderful to rediscover that not everything that I produce has to be perfect and that not everything that I am not proud of has to remain a secret!!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 This week I have discovered a new movement called ecopsychology http://www.ecopsychology.org/ which advocates that the health of the planet can have an impact on the well being of it's inhabitants. It makes sense that the condition of a person's immediate surroundings could change their psychological state and that things like noise pollution, traffic congestion and overcrowding in cites could contribute to rising numbers of mental health issues within the population. I made the discovery when I picked up the most recent copy of Adbusters in my local indi bookshop. There is a featured essay by Kalle Lasn and Micah White called Ecology of the Mind https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/90/ecology-mind... which makes the claim that "in the last couple generations, we have largely abandoned the natural world, immersing ourselves in virtual realms. Along with this transition to a new psychic realm, we have also seen the exponential rise of mental illnesses."The article outlines six contributing causes of mental atrophy which occur as a result of digital culture: noise, infotoxins and infoviruses, the erosion of empathy, loss of infodiversity, the fragmentation of our psyches (jumpy brain syndrome) and running out of culture. All of these are caused by our ongoing dependancy on computers and digital devices, particularly the internet. The authors quote Nicholas Carr http://www.roughtype.com/ when he claims that“Over the past few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory… what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles."When writing about new technologies I have always been careful to avoid the reactionary riot of technological determinism that was prevalent within early critique of the internet. At the inception of platforms such as Second Life it was often fantasied that humanity might depart earthly realms in order to eat, sleep and reproduce virtually. What this edition of adbusters points out is that almost 20 years on from the birth of the internet, our bodies have not been so easily abandoned. While a little occasional internet use is in no way detrimental, when combined with 24 hour TV, constant use of iphones and ipods and the fact that more and more people sit alone at their laptops during 12 to 15 hour work days.... it could easily be changing the way our brain functions.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 After my previous post on ecopsychology, I decided it was time to finally get around to watching a film called You Live In Public by Ondi Timoner. On the whole it made me want to do a digital detox (yet here I am blogging about it doh!) The film documents the life of Josh Harris, who made his fortune during the 90s dot com boom. He used his riches to create projects that predicted the revolutionising impact of the internet on human relationships. In 2001 he and his girlfriend Tanya Corrin turned their home into a lavishly designed webcasting studio where they broadcast their entire existence online via webcam and hosted their own chat room where users could comment on the minutia of their existence. Needless to say the relationship and the experiment broke down after 81 days, when both appeared to be suffering psychological consequences from their unusual existence. Of course the project predicted the format of shows like big brother as well as the rise of surveillance culture. The portrayal of Josh Harris feels quite indicative of a certain male archetype that we are seeing more and more in the media: lonely man with an abundance of money, technology at his finger tips and no capacity to make real relationships, who lavishes himself with obscure riches and hedonism with little regard for the feelings of others. The dot com boomers seem to be portrayed similarly to how we might understand the portrayal of rich bankers in the current media climate, greedy, hedonistic and detached from reality. I raise this because I am interested in how technology, money and power converge around specific instances of emotional and psychological disturbance. Its clear from the film that Josh Harris had his own longstanding psychological problems stemming from a lonely childhood spent in front of the TV and its no surprise when his obsession with living publicly manifests itself in a particular kind of madness. Whats more surprising is how quickly participants in his millennium project Quiet http://post.thing.net/node/2800 started to show signs of extreme disturbance after living together for a month in a New York basement that was populated by surveillance cameras. Under constant pressure to perform for the cameras participants became distressed, depressed and startlingly hedonistic. A worrying fact when you consider how rapidly our social and digital environment is evolving to mean that we all live in public to some extent.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been intending to blog about Matthew De Kersaint Giraudeau http://www.dekersaint.co.uk/ for some time now, following an email exchange that had with him in June. I know he's performing at the Royal Standard in Liverpool tonight at 7pm http://www.the-royal-standard.com/events/, so thankfully my procrastination means that the post will be 'timely' rather that just 'late'. Matthew first came to my attention via the April issue of New Art Criticism where I found his video piece "The Sadness Of Mark Speight." It tells the tragic tale of the children's TV presenter who took his own life in April 2008 after his girlfriend died of severe burns and a cocaine overdose. http://www.newartcriticism.co.uk/markspeight.html. What I loved about the film was its 'youtube' type viral video aesthetic (its made entirely from found footage), coupled with Matthew's deadpan voiceover. Images of Mark "gurning around and generally looking enthusiastic" sit awkwardly against a disassociated commentary by the artist, that conveys minimal emotive intonation toward its subject matter. In our email conversation Matthew says:"I'm personally interested in psychological dissociation and its implication in the possibility of a chaotic reality (the possibility that meaning and coherence are imposed on a nonsensical series of events by an incredibly powerful, fully functioning mind - the idea that normal life is a psychosis)."There are moments of nostalgia within the narrative and an analysis of how suicide might be a difficult concept for a child to grasp, yet in essence the video unhooks tragedy from the emotive experience of grief in order to express the view of a distanced observer. In doing so it questions the usual trajectory of response and the sense of psychological order that we use to impose this, suggesting that no single mental process is more sane than the next. The video is an outtake from a performance lecture which I have not seen, although I do believe that he is doing a performance lecture tonight at the Royal Standard. I'll be there! Matthew also has a series of "Psychosis Drawings" on his website which are inspired by a repetitive behavioral tendency called Stereotypy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypy, often seen in autistic patients and children with developmental difficulties. He describes the imagery used as "paranoid hallucinations inspired by mass media." I particularly like Networking and Coverage posted here.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been going a bit nuts for the past week or so. This is often moment when I have my best ideas so I have been holding onto my hat and hoping that something good comes of it. While sitting in my hotel room in Edinburgh on Thursday morning something about the Group Therapy show started to form in my head around the idea of research and resource. This blog has become such an interesting and useful forum for my ideas over the past three months and has provided a catalyst for really good discussions with so many artists. It almost feels that a highly polished curatorial 'show' as an outcome would somehow neglect to address the many open-ended questions that surround the field that I seek to engage with. I feel intuitively that to propose further questions rather than seek to provide answers might prove a more interesting process at this stage. Having said all of this I would love to commission some new work and Hans from Ubermorgan would be the favorite at the moment. I am also still visualising video installations having a presence in some sense as I have discussed so many good ones on here. However I would really like to propose Adbusters as a partner in the project (after reading their ecopsychology addition) and work with them to curate a programme of talks and actions on the the theme of ecopsychology. A library (or web archive) is a possibility and then there is also that whole other area of how technology is being used in psychotherapy which I have not even started on yet (but intend to soon). We could bring in examples of the equipment and software being used.  God its exciting...... I think my next step might be to approach someone from the AND festival http://www.andfestival.org.uk/ as it feels to me that the 2011 festival would be the perfect context for this project to reside in. If I have their buy-in I can think about talking to Adbusters and MIND or CALM as I still really want to see if I can get a mental health charity on board in some capacity. I need a proposal and a budget....I think it might be admin time......... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 By the way..... given that I am basically a massive egg head, I sometimes get excited about the most abstract of things. I nearly wet my pants earlier today when I discovered that that temple of academic sexiness The London Consortium is running an Mres short course on some of the very same topics that I am discussing on this blog. Its called Down: Melancholy, Depression and Regeneration. To be honest its more about manifestations of depression as a cultural and economic concept than a direct link between technology and mental health. But it's close enough for me to feel that I'm working with issues that are academically vital as well as interesting to me for personal reasons. My god check out the beast of a reading list that they have given..... http://www.londonconsortium.com/courses/down.php. I think I'm basically going to have to lock myself away until I have read every book on here..... Nah I'm only joking...... kindda........ Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Today I need to take a brief detour to examine the term 'curate.' I am writing with reference to the thoughts that I noted here on 15th August about a conventional gallery exhibition and how this may not be the most appropriate or interesting outcome of this blog and project. If I decide not to produce a white cube exhibition containing artworks in space as the end product for 'Group Therapy', have I curated an exhibition at all, or have I just organised it? Or is it in fact my artwork? AND does it matter anyway as long as the project manifests something of interest? Luckily I am an obsessional collector of books and whenever such ponderings overtake me I can usually reach for one volume or another to begin to resolve things. On this occasion I've come straight to JJ Charlesworth's essay Curating Doubt in Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance. This essay tracks the progression of curating from practice based archiving and display of objects in museums and galleries to a discourse based theoretical paradigm that generates its own creative perspectives. Charlesworth says that "curatorship can now be understood as the synthesis of institution context and artistic content- the product of an 'artist' rather than a curator." He goes on to quote the warning that Paul O'Neill made in Art Monthly, on the inherent danger that "we are becoming so self-reflexive that exhibitions often end up as nothing more or less than art exhibitions curated by curators curating curators, curating artists, curating artworks, curating exhibitions." Over the past three years I've been fortunate to partner with some very unusual individuals who have blurred the boundary between the archetypical roles of artist and curator. In 2008 my work as an assistant to Hannah Hurtzig http://www.mobileacademy-berlin.com/ on Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge No 11 On WASTE: The Disappearance and Comeback of Things & Values certainly involved a process  of assembling and framing a collection around a theme, although Hannah herself did not refer to this process as curatorial but as artistic. The project offered visitors the opportunity to book an appointment with an expert from various fields and to sit for a five minute conversation which would relate to the central topic: waste. The process was catalytic of conversation and functioned almost as a 3D library which users could draw on to inhabit new perspectives. I would love to find a way for Group Therapy to provide a similar discursive space, but still wish to include some conventional elements of an exhibition.Let me also add here that buried within the multiple academic references that permeated Blackmarket No 11, I often wondered about 'the talking cure' or psychoanalysis as a reference. Hannah talked occasionally about friends who were taking anti-depressants or her own brief depressive experiences.... I often wished I had pushed her to talk more about this, but I was quite young back then and really quite frightened of the woman...... Have a look at the images and I am sure you will see why the low lit intimacy of these face to face conversations puts me in mind of some kind of therapy.I have used this blog so far to talk about the work of other artists, to look at some commentaries on mental health in the media, to discuss books that I have read and to retell some of my own experiences. I am not sure if it becomes to ambitious to attempt to include all of the above in the final project, or if I ought just to be content to show artists work and accompany this with an interesting conference. Maybe that it enough for now and maybe anything more gets too close to Charlesworth's fears around excessive curatorial complication?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 A therapist once told me that I've got an agent provocateur. What he was inferring was basically that there's a sort of self-destruct button in my head that I'm likely to push at times of great pressure. Lots of people have these buttons and some people get to do really glamorous things as a result of their decision to push, like misguided seductions and ludicrous spending. My provocateur is not nearly so exciting, but she is pretty powerful at times. I quit therapy by letter a few weeks ago; a move that I know wasn't healthy for me. I did it anyway because we had been getting into some difficult stuff and I couldn't deal with it so I legged it.... This is me at my finest: illogical, cowardly and a dead cert' to be the first person to disappear when people try to help and support me. Anyway the reason that all of this is relevant is because for the past two years at around this time of year I have began to draft a masters application. I've usually gone on and completed it, got references and in 2008 I even went down to London on the train to hand deliver my application to Goldsmiths, but at the last minute I decided that actually the application was rubbish and that I would be a fool to hand it in. Similar story in 2008...... when it came to finalising the proposal my provocateur kicked in and it got no further than my lap top. 
We all have the voices in our head that tell us we are a load of old rubbish. In Transactional Analysis (model for understanding human personality developed by Eric Berne) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysi... these voices are called introjects and are often critical influences from childhood that we take on as component parts of our subconscious. For example the voice of a critical teacher who thinks we have no potential, whose views we integrate into our own perception of ourselves as our early personality develops. Sometimes these introjects can have particularly malevolent intent, maybe the influence of an incredibly negative force that we encounter during childhood: like a mother who becomes pregnant by accident and subsequently spends her child's early years wishing it dead (this sounds like a horrible thing to talk about, but it happens). An agent provocateur can have many origins and although I have not identified the origin of mine, I know that it often encourages me to sabotage any possibility of getting what I most want in life. So while for the past four years I have been craving to go off to London and study for a masters, I've not done it, for no other reason than the fact that I have lost faith in my own ability to be successful it at the most critical moment. 
This year, this blog and the subsequent Group Therapy project that I am planning form the basis of what would be my 2010 masters application. I think I have some really interesting potential here and I am desperate not to fuck it up by loosing faith in myself at the last minute. I am trying to set myself deadlines so that I cannot meander and procrastinate my way into loosing my focus. I am also going to try and share draft proposals with people like Sid and Andrew who are interested in the blog and the subject matter. I've set myself the target of proposing the project to FACT before November this year. This will give me a real world dynamic to my ideas and hopefully a bit of faith in the fact that what I'm working on in my little study in Cheshire is of interest to the wider world.   These reflections come off the back of a particularly black Sunday, when everything I write seems stupid. I'm mainly just exhausted, as I've worked six long days this week. I'm enjoying my new promotion at work and relishing the challenge. I've been doing pretty well so far and have been keeping the provocateur at bay.... lets hope this means I'm winning the battle in a more long term way!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've started to read this really interesting book called 'The Melancholy Android' by Eric G Wilson. It documents the practice of android making: when an inventor builds a robot or creature that emulates human form. Frankenstein’s monster would be the classic example although the practice extends to puppeteering and scary ghouls from horror movies such as Chucky from Tom Holland's movie Child's Play. Wilson's main assertion is that androids personify the repressed psychology of their creators. He says that "The humanoid embodies characteristics that its creator pretends to loathe. It is a register of what humans most desire and fear, what they hate in life and what they love in death." As the title may suggest Wilson argues that what is manifest in this release of repressed desires is a deeper sense of melancholy. The role of puppetry in Spike Jonze's film Being John Malkovich is used as an example of how narratives created by the film's protagonist Craig Schwartz express his inner most longings: "Marionette forms of Heloise and Abelard from separate chambers, pine for erotic contact." The puppeteer lives out fantasy via the products of his craftsmanship.I've only read the first few chapters so far but I'm beginning to ponder in what sense this theory might apply to the work of the artist, or how much of an artists output could be understood as an actualisation of subconscious material. I'm thinking of artists like Paul Macarthy and his performance persona Bossy Burger, who managed to make me feel physically sick during his retrospective at Tate Liverpool a few years ago. While film directors such as Michael Haneke (who makes grueling and extraordinary films such as The Piano Teacher) may not create androids as such, I wonder how many of the actions of their lead characters could be interpreted as material out of the subconscious of the auteur. I’m thinking particularly of Hannke because in some ways he trumps my theory off the back of an interview I read with him last year where he boasts about his own psychological stability and his very happy childhood. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/25/intervi... I’m not sure… I need to keep thinking on it.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been feeling a bit shy about writing on here of late. Its because I know that I'm struggling a bit with my emotions at the moment and although this is supposed to be a blog where its okay for me to talk about the above, I really don't want to constantly post big chunks of text featuring my melancholic self analysis. Its not that interesting! I guess I have to find a balance between honestly presenting myself as what I am (a depressive, introspective, obsessive) and also knowing that I have plenty more exciting, enlightening and rewarding things to write about!ON THAT NOTE: next week Rachel and I are hosting Brian Catling http://www.briancatling.com/Site/INTRO.html at the Bluecoat. He's doing a three day durational performance come installation for the opening of Liverpool Biennial. There is going to be so much going on in the city next week it's mind blowing to think of. I'm actually really excited! I need to make sure that I don't spend the whole time sat in my office and that I get out and see things across the city. I'm particularly looking forward to the Biennial conference which I hope will have some relevance to a few of my earlier posts on issues around trauma and embodiment http://www.biennial.com/articles/event/Touched%20C...Also, after some encouraging words from Emily and Andrew who commented on my post from the 5th September I've managed to full my finger out this morning and piece together (another) MRes draft proposal. I've sent it off to Sid V for some stern critique. I've also sent it to my old dissertation tutor Ross Birrell who hopefully will see the connections with my undergrad work. And just to prove that it really does exist and that I really am going to actually submit it this time..... I'll post the synopsis as a sneaky preview....Frankenstein's Monster: Masculinities, mental health and new technologies Synopsis Mary Shelly's Frankenstein pioneered a literary archetype: a dangerous creature created as a result of reckless experimentation with new technology. Authored at the dawn of the industrial revolution, it warned against the dangers of replacing human workers with machines.     I propose to survey contemporary art and culture to identify 21st century Frankenstein's monsters: archetypes that embody undercurrent fearfulness toward new technology. I expect that while some of these examples will be literary; most will not. The focus will be on the specter of Frankenstein haunting the popular imagination. With Frankenstein as a model, my thesis will interrogate the present state of contemporary masculine archetypes and their relationship to new technologies. Within this I give particular attention to recent thinking on mental health of the male population and speculation that the overuse of technology may be changing human bodies and brains. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Okay so the Internet isn't morphing our brains into weird malfunctioning humanoid organs. Phew  http://tiny.cc/6tyis... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Just under a week ago I attended a symposium at University of Bolton called "Performing Arts and Health." The day long event celebrated a new research lab opening at the university which looks at the wider role of the arts in the the medical profession. I met a lady called Jessica who works across theatre and health care and is writing a phd on (among other things) how theatre practice can release trauma stored in the body. http://www.jessicabockler.co.uk/. I must contact her soon and see if she wants to meet for a coffee.During the afternoon I also took part in some workshops, when I made a collage and wrote a poem.To complete the poem our workshop leader Jackie Hagan, who has been facilitating writing workshops in psychiatric hospitals for seven years, asked us to make a list of things that shine. Here's what I put. pennies foil sweet wrappersthe sun the eyes of a kind person milk bottle topsdiamonds polished silver starsthe reflection of sunlight on waterglitterfire steel  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 This week I got an email from Hannah Hull www.hannahhull.co.uk about an event that she is running as part of her ongoing research into Art and Mental Health. It sounds interesting.....Its called "ART vs. REHAB: A seminar to explore and provoke new relationships between art and mental health

."She says that 'the purpose of the evening is to discuss potential futures for rehabilitative arts projects.' And that she is inviting arts professionals to openly interpret the theme.  I've drafted the following proposal as a responce... A bit different to my Masters Proposal but something I would be interested to talk about none the less. I thought that this topic would be most interesting for anyone in the audience who may be looking for positive and practical ways to use the arts and technology in mental health in their day to day working lives........ Group Therapy: Biopsychosocial perspectives on art and new technologies. This presentation introduces the work of artists using new technologies to promote positive mental health through bodily awareness. Articulating from a biopsychosocial perspective, I advocate that social interaction and bodily experiences are vital constituents of mental wellbeing and that crosspollination between arts and technology can help to facilitate this holistic approach to health. My case studies will include George Khut’s projects; The Heart Library and Thinking Through the Body and Tania Fox’s Posture Enhancers. I incorporate examples of these works exhibited in venues such as hospitals, in the hope that I might inspire healthcare professionals and artists to think about practical applications in their own work. In order to strengthen my argument, I provide a context for the relationship between technology and mental health by introducing recent thinking on the hybridization of psychotherapy and technology from publications such as the Journal of Clinical Psychology, where Michelle G Newman has claimed that “when questioned about sensitive life issues such as criminal history and suicidality, clients will disclose more substantive information to a computer than a clinician.” I hope that this argument will affirm the potential of technology to make a positive impact on the ongoing discourse around the arts and mental health. More Info on Case Studies: George Khut http://georgekhut.com/heartlibraryThinking Through the Body Project http://thinkingthroughthebody.net/blog/ Tania Fox http://www.design-interactions.rca.ac.uk/tania-fox... Speaker Biog Vanessa Bartlett is an artist, writer and curator based in Liverpool, UK. She is currently performance programmer at the Bluecoat. Her blog Group Therapy documents her research on the relationship between psychology, the arts and technology. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been trying to design the perfect exhibition space for this project. I've even put work into it (or at least artists initials). There are still a couple of others who I would like to include, but these seem to be the essentials. I am not going to write the artist's names because that seems to be making assumptions about the fact that they would say yes!!  I need to start considering budget lines very soon. Here is my dream shopping list... Publication- containing blog, emails, research Library section (with books)1 artist's commission including flights and research feex2 projectorsx1 TVMarketing - leaflet for conf & exhibition Conference inc speakers fees & accommodation Video camera for documentation of conference AV technician for exhibition installation While I am on to making lists, here also is my list of people that I would like to speak at my conference.. totally fanciful but one has to start somewhere.....Nick Carr http://www.roughtype.com/HB George Khut Lizzie Muller Kalle Lasn and Micah WhiteAB... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Blimey look at this.... its been a long time since I wrote anything on here. This I conclude...... is a good thing. There is something about sitting around writing about 'mental health' that breeds such a sense of intensity in the mind that its probably not very sustainable for longer periods. Taking a break from my blog is probably mentally healthy.On Monday next week I am going along to a seminar called Art Vs Rehab and its all about uses of art in mental health treatment. The thing about it that really caught my eye is Hannah Hull's proposed presentation about how the methodology of 'conceptual art' is useful in rehabilitation practice. Here is her blurb she can explain it much better than me:Artist Hannah Hull uses a conceptual art model when working with people with backgrounds in mental health. She suggests that political, social and therapeutic aims are implicit to conceptual art, and that this model allows for a more attainable social inclusion.   I like this because I find that 'conceptual' art methods are often deemed to be alienating to anyone who has not been to art school. The fact that more conceptual (rather than just visual) approaches can be considered therapeutic within treatment is really quite progressive, I think. Read more about Hannah's work here http://www.hannahhull.co.uk/Also there is a really interesting festival happening in Croatia at the moment called Extravagent Bodies: Extravagant Minds which has got loads of interesting work about mental health and a super looking exhibition, which I am very sad to be missing. Carlos Larrondo's video work about a psychiatric hospital that launched its own radio station sounds particularly fascinating. http://kontejner.org/lt22-radio-la-colifata-englis...I've had a couple of nice emails about this blog in the past two weeks...... I like it when this happens as its heartening to think that people take time to read and then feel inspired to get in touch. I'm really busy finalising my MA application, applying for a few other bits and pieces and generally sorting my life out at the moment..... But as soon as all the urgent stuff is out of the way I am going to settle down and write a post I have been excited about for ages...... about some psychotic drawings of cats............ Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I had a wonderful time in London last weekend. The old red wine monster got me big time on Saturday night, followed by the gin and curry monster on Sunday. By the time Monday arrived I was feeling bloaty and green with overindulgence and lack of sleep- not exactly the perfect circumstances for sitting down to the Art V's Rehab conference. Yet bravely I soldiered on and spent pretty much the the entire time wedged in a corner of the conference room... saying very little. My networking with a hangover skills could use some work!I'm very glad indeed that I braved it though, as it was a super event. The format was well crafted, with three very interesting speakers presenting followed by group discussion on questions that had been posed by all delegates. I was happy that my question came out as one of the first to be discussed: 'What role can art institutions (galleries and theatres) play in mental health rehabilitation'. This provoked lots of interesting responses - both positive and negative. It was widely felt that an official public space such as a gallery lends a sense of legitimacy to participatory projects for groups who may come from the position of 'outsider' due to long term hospitalisation etc. Its interesting though, that the language around 'mental health' remained cemented in quite a conventional 'us and them' type of perspective. As in 'how do we the artists work with... them.. the mentals.' Not that the conversation was in any way disrespectful at all, but I was relieved when Jacqueline Ede flagged that the term 'mental health' can occasionally be problematic because it brackets an experience outside of normal life. I've struggled with this in my own writing and tend to try to use the term 'emotional and psychological disturbance' where possible. However even this falls short of the mark. I wonder if artists might have a role to play in finding language to better express the fact that the human brain varies incredibly from person to person and that bracketing certain psychological behaviors as 'illness' can be detrimental. On this subject, I'm lucky to be in possession of a catalogue from the Extreme Bodies: Extreme Minds Festival that took place in Zagreb last week. Its really engrossing and I've just tackled the first essay called How Did We All Become Mad? which deals with the idea that many aspects of everyday life are becoming pathologised as a result of the actions of the pharmaceutical industry. Its also got a really interesting perspective on mental health issues as 'natural selection' due to the excessively complex structure of our brains. What is particularly lovely is the author's assertion that: 'the world is extremely heterogeneous and everyone ought to be able to find some niche in which he or she can thrive in their own particular way, according to their own particular criteria. Todays' evolutionary biologists are increasingly revealing that the creation of specific niches is just as important for survival as natural selection, which means that we ought, instead of adjusting to fixed circumstances, change these circumstances in such a way that they respond to the needs of our different brains.'Zoran Roško How did we all become mad? For more on Art V's Rehab please visit artvsrehab.tumblr.com... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 While I'm here and am seemingly having a bout of Saturday night insomnia.... I'll deal with the psychotic cats that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Just so I'm not keeping you in suspense or anything......A couple of weeks ago I popped over to Manchester and decided to buy the latest edition of Cabinet Magazine. I love Cabinet but it's hella expensive. Seven pounds a pop! However Brian Dillon is their UK editor who never fails to please... and there always texts on really interesting themes. My favorite in the current edition is an article by Adam Jasper on the nineteenth century artist Louis Wain. Initially a painter of upstanding and gentlemanly anthropomorphized cats, which earned him money and fame, Wain gradually slipped into schizophrenia during later life. This transition is evidenced by the enormous change in his cat portraits, which according to Adam Jasper are now used as a text book demonstration of the optical effects associated with psychosis. Jasper quotes Hans Prinzhorn in asserting that "such dense edge-to-edge work (was) motived by a kind of horror vacui, as if the confrontation with the void was being fought out on paper."Its funny how I can't stop staring at these crazy felines. They are fascinating... but maybe not the greatest thing for me getting obsessed with if I ever intend to sleep tonight....... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I finally did it!! I finished my proposal, filled out the online application, gathered my references and pressed send. I have now officially applied for an MRes at the London Consortium. I am also waiting on Goldsmiths to confirm that one of their tutors Lisa Blackman http://bit.ly/cepOj4 would be interested in supervising my research. I am really glad that someone at Goldsmiths recommended Lisa as her work on Critical Psychology (which I currently don't know that much about) seems really appropriate. Its kind of a cross section between psychology and radicalism. Here is the Wikipedia entry http://bit.ly/dtzSZ3 (although obviously one should never reply on Wikipedia for proper factual info!)  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 So it appears that I have taken a sabbatical from my blog! Thats a shame as its been an eventful month or two. As ever my non productivity has correlated with a very minor heartache (which I have made major because histrionics are a fundamental part of my personality.) But now thats over I'm sure I will regain my focus and start churning out some more writing as I have not produced nearly enough recently. Two weeks ago I went to London and had an initial meeting about my MA application with Lisa Blackman at Goldsmiths. I warmed instantly to Lisa and feel that she will make a really great supervisor for someone like me who tends to need a lot of encouragement! Lisa said she is interested in supervising me, but that the proposal needs some work. I took this quite well as I can also see lots of room for improvement. I think the bad news is that it needs a total rewrite... implying that January is going to be a busy month for yours truly! I've been out of academia for the past five years so its not surprising that I need some pointers from Lisa to get my application really on track. I have been asked to consider issues around Affect, which has been a really trendy topic academically this year. Lisa also suggested I think about archives and how artists are producing alternative archives of mental health symptoms, particularly in performance. I find this second point really interesting as it tallies with some of my fascinations around the role of social media and how individuals use these media to create their own personal archives, particularly around things like internet suicides. These alternative archives can be viewed as a counterpoint to conventional archives of mental health symptoms such as medical records created by doctors and hospitals. It allows the patient to archive and articulate independently outside of mainstream medicine and also brings mental health symptoms to a more public audience. Lots of potential to consider.....I'm off to London for another interview at The London Consortium on Thursday. I am more nervous about this one as it will be more formal, but I have earmarked the next two days for reading and pondering....Today however, I have to go to town and return a £200 pair of shoes (I clearly can't afford) that I decided to buy myself as conciliation for the afore mentioned minor heartache. Does anyone else find it utterly bizarre how much a little stirring of the loins can cloud one's judgement? Or maybe I'm just too sensitive?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've decided to propel myself into 2011 on a wave of optimism. This is based on the belief that it must be time for things to get a bit better. The past two or three years seem to have been Yin years, dominated by deep dark shadows, solitude and passivity. This year is going to be a year of Yang, characterized by light, heat and creativity. Obviously its all a part of Taoist philosophy that the two elements have to intermingle in order for life to exist. But in essence I think I need to become more dragon than tiger in 2011.... and start breathing a bit more fire. I went for my interview at the London Consortium yesterday. As an interview performance it certainly wasn't perfect, but I do feel that I at least represented myself as an interesting, proactive and enthusiastic candidate. The interviewers (the amazing Steven Conner http://bit.ly/f8zCpy and his colleague Sarah) threw some incredibly interesting questions at me, including: can the pathology of the internet be seen as exclusively male? And what about the connections between women and the internet? It really does seem to be the gender issue that people pull out as the flaw in my proposal, so I perhaps have to reconsider or remove this aspect? My recent thoughts on archiving symptoms don't necessarily deal with gender anyway, so perhaps this aspect will fall away naturally. Yesterday I stumbled across this article in the Guardian http://bit.ly/fQQelY. I wish I had seen it prior to my interview as it certainly would have been something to flag up. Its the story of Simone Black who posted a facebook status update on Christmas Day saying "Took all my pills, be dead soon, bye bye everyone." Its an online suicide note in ten words and its utterly chilling, especially given that out of Simone's 1,048 facebook friends, not one stepped away from their computer to go and see if she was still alive. She was found dead later that evening. I find it interesting to consider the motives of such a public cry for help. Clearly Simone didn't have anyone around her that she could turn to, so she posted on facebook in order to feel as if somebody was listening. The problem is that her post prompted nothing but bickering and abuse among those who did respond with a comment. Maybe her facebook friends were just apathetic? Maybe the words didn't even seem real to them and were taken as an idle threat? Sometimes there is just no way of knowing the sentiments behind a person's posts if you can't read the subtleties of speech and mannerisms. Either way, I do believe that one of the driving forces behind this kind of internet suicide is the need to validate an individual life by sensationalizing it's destruction. Given that most people who commit suicide tend to think that their lives are meaningless, self publication offers the opportunity to elevate self importance and to make a bigger impact with one's decision to self destruct. I also think its about the perpetrator making others feel guilty and about spreading a general sense of futility......Wahhhhh stop press I just got an exciting email from the London Consortium.... check out the image to your right....... I got in!!! Please excuse me while I stop writing intelligent and interesting things and break out into a one hour victory dance. Shimmy shake!! Sorry dear readers, what an emotional roller coaster of a blog post! Yikes... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I have just read an extract from Emma Forrest's book Your Voice in My Head in yesterday's Guardian http://bit.ly/dKlamU. The book is published by Bloomsbury on 17th of Jan and gives an account of this successful female journalist's battle with depression. What struck me immediately about this article is the wistful glamour that the author effortlessly attaches to her illness. Accounts of bulimia and suicide take place against a backdrop of quirky downtown New York and relationships with high profile film stars. The accompanying image depicts a beautiful young woman in a gorgeous yellow dress, her serious facial expression subtly alluding to the strain that her suicidal depression and self harm have caused her. It seems to me that public representations of depression often take on this kind of glamorous form, especially when it comes to depression in women. Books like Shoot the Damn Dog written by Sally Brampton (former editor of Vogue) are often set against a background of wealth and resources that make the passage from symptom to diagnosis, treatment and cure a little more fluid. Sally Brampton says at one point toward the end of her book "money is there to be spent," a phrase that affirms her assured capability to pay for therapy in order to overcome her (admittedly horrendous) symptoms. I can't help question how this very one sided depiction of depression in women, might impact on the public's perception of mental health issues. In August 2010 Janet Street Porter published an horrendously foolish article in the Daily Mail, which leveled the claim that depression was the new trendy illness in rich women. http://bit.ly/atC8MA Her claims included the assertion that women from poor backgrounds are simply too preoccupied with poverty and overwork to allow the word depression to enter their vocabulary. Only rich women, she concluded, have time to be depressed.While I utterly refute Porter's claims and believe depression to be a serious health issue, her article does seem symptomatic of the current popular discourse around depression. We hear multitudes about depression survivors like Emma Forrest who battle with the depressive mindset in pretty dresses and high heals. Yet we hear considerably less about underprivileged women who bring up children in tiny council houses and are never diagnosed as depressives because they have too many other health and life issues to contend with first. I'm very excited about the new direction that I have identified for my MA research and how I might be able to evidence some other platform for public perceptions of mental health issues, that oppose this glamorous female surviver model. My decision to look at artists making alternative archives of mental health symptoms, allows me to think about how other perspectives might be illuminated for a public audience. Its curious how the issue of gender looms large here and that I am proposing to focus on the experiences of men. I know that I people keep questioning the gender aspect of my proposal, but somehow the singular feminine perspective evidenced in books like Emma Forrest's continue to serve as testimony to its relevance.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I'll not start this post with an apology for my prolonged absence. I've been busy..... okay???? No Group Therapy has not stopped, its just becoming more ambitious and is therefore going to take much longer...... and suffer from larger gaps of inactivity. To put myself at risk of sounding like a geek..... I tweeted this today "A depressing thought: it takes me YEARS to fully evolve an artistic project that I am sincerely passionate about." I am afraid that all evidence points to stamina and longevity as vital in the making process for a curator....... shit.Staff and punters at the Bluecoat were given a real treat a few weeks ago, when freelance curator Angela Kingston came to chat to us about the evolution of her exhibition Underwater. She confessed that it takes her years to realize an idea and that she likes to incubate a project for a substantial period to check that its in accordance with the prevailing zeitgeist. I didn't dare ask how such a convoluted process works out financially.......I did a piece of writing a few weeks ago that is also relevant to Group Therapy. Its about Ulla Von Brandenburg's work on synathesisa and its worth a read if I do say so myself http://bit.ly/i0o5GqBut anyway... its now half past midnight and I have work in the morning. I promise to not wait so long until I write again.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 This is a very fast post. On Monday I have to post the final version of my AHRC application off to the London Consortium, for consideration for a grant. They pick one person from each year for said grant, so the competition will be huge!I've done a complete overhaul of my proposal - because I did not think the last version was strong enough to qualify. Here it is. If anyone has an suggestions on how it could be improved in the next two days - please give me a shout! The dissolution of the linear mind? Archiving mental health symptoms using new technology.   A man nurses an erection through his trousers, while waving out of his window. On a rooftop outside a group of builders go about their business, oblivious. This autobiographical clip, shot on a shaky hand-held camera, documents a moment of desperate isolation and a failed attempt at communication. It belongs to the huge archive of video footage, emails, text messages and recorded telephone conversations that is at the heart of Kim Noble Will Die, an acclaimed work of performance art/comedy, subtitled by one critic as  ‘a multimedia suicide note.’ Within Noble’s pathological index there are unanswered emails to the self-help guru Paul McKenna and a telephone recording in which his ex-girlfriend confesses infidelity. Not only is Kim Noble Will Die a record of one man’s mental health symptomatology, it also represents a zeitgeist in which technology is becoming understood less as a simple tool for communication and more as an aggregate of human psychology. In her new book Alone Together, academic and psychologist Sherry Turkle, employs empirical case studies to frame technology as a placebo for satisfying the deepest need for human symbiosis. Technology, she says “proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies.”[1]  Her words are part of a wave of recent speculation about the impact of technology on the human brain, which finds its zenith in journalist Nicholas Carr’s prophesising the “dissolution of the linear mind.” [2] Historically there is a myth of fear that stretches from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein to Stelarc’s flesh hook artworks and draws association between technology and deviant or pathological behaviour. Writing in the Guardian in August 2010, Tom McCarthy has linked technology and depression, beginning with Freud’s book Civilisation and its Discontents. He says that “for Freud, all technology is a prosthesis: each technological appendage, to a large degree, embodies an absence, a loss.”[3] But beyond the artistic imagination, these speculations find some solidity in scientific practice. In the 2004 Journal for Clinical Psychology, Michelle G Newman’s essay on email psychotherapy asserts that: “when questioned about sensitive areas such as criminal history, alcohol blackouts, sexual disorders, and suicidality, clients will disclose more substantive information to a computer than to a clinician.” [4] I propose a dissertation in two parts: Part one: The historical relationship between technology and pathological behaviour ·      How is Nicholas Carr’s prophesy of the “dissolution of the linear mind” embedded historically within the artistic imagination? ·      Where is the point of contact between artistic speculation and scientific practice? Part two: Archives of mental health symptoms, made using new technology ·      How are communication technologies being used to document pathological behaviour and symptoms of mental ill health? ·      How might these documents function in opposition to more conventional archives of mental health symptoms such as medical records and doctor’s notes? Case studies of mental health archives covered in part two: ·      Hans Bernhard, an artist who blames a psychotic breakdown he suffered in 2002 on his use of the Internet ·      Kevin Whitrick, the first British man to broadcast his own suicide online ·      Kim Noble artist and stand up comic with bipolar disorder     [1] Turkle, Sherry, Alone Together, Why we expect more from technology and less from each other, p1  [2] Carr, Nicholas, The Shallows, How the Internet is changing the way we think, read and remember, p1 [3] McCarthy, Tom, ‘Ghosts in the Machine’ The Guardian 24.07.10 [4] Newman, Michelle G, ‘Technology in Psychotherapy: An Introduction.’ Journal of Clinical Psychology Vol 60 Issue 2    ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 So I did post the video in the end. I wish that it wasn't so obvious that I am wearing red lipstick. Yes I did check my hair in the mirror before I pressed record!! How self conscious of me.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I got an email yesterday with a video reply from Sid, the artist who I mentioned in my previous post. He's changed his voice and his face in the first part, which raises interesting questions about self and identity and what individuals might chose to portray of themselves online or elsewhere. I like that he is talking about wearing masks, as I think this is something that we all do in everyday life, but maybe particularly if we are put in front of a camera or a virtual audience. I get the sense that the internet affords lots of potential to manifest different versions of the self, creating the possibility to know people intimately at the same time as not knowing them at all.Sid has a website here www.sidvolter.co.uk... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 People really seem to be enjoying the two video posts. My favorite response on twitter was this one from Emily Speed: "@VanessaBartlett I'll tell you what's intimate: being in bed & holding phone up to my shortsighted face and watching you talk/slurp wine."I guess this is the thing, the level of intimacy depends both on the person who is talking (me) and the viewer and how/where they are when they engage. Something to keep in mind I think.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I was really thrilled when I received an email from Alexa Wright last month, introducing me to her current project: a photographic collection on the subject of mental health called A View From the Inside. Alexa stumbled across this blog online and noticed that I had written about her project Killers. She liked some of my references so she asked if I would be interested in meeting up for a chat.A View From the Inside will be a series of eight large-scale digitally manipulated photographic portraits of people with short-term psychotic disorders or episodic conditions like schizophrenia. Alexa hopes that the images can readdress some of the common stigmas around mental health. Interestingly she will use the symbolism and techniques of eighteenth-century portrait painting as a means of representing the psychotic experiences of her subjects. She will undertake a long period of consultation with each person, in order to create photographs that represent both outward appearance and their internal experience of what is 'real'. At first I found Alexa's reference to portrait painting problematic, as these types of techniques would suggest that she intends to enter into an hierarchical relationship where the artist asserts a perspective on the subject which is definitive. But after talking with Alexa I see that her process is actually deeply discursive and very creative for the subject. One of her participants has written a blog post about her participation here http://fluffernutter.co.uk/?p=127 Alexa showed me some of the sketches and early mock ups of the images, which I think will be intensity detailed and rich portraits. Alexa's previous work has dealt with perceptions of 'normality' as a reoccurring theme. Having approached the stigma attached to physical disability, she now feels that mental health is the next taboo to be overcome. Alexa is still searching for one or two new participants for the project and is particularly interested in hearing from men, older people or people from ethnic minorities with experience of conditions like schizophrenia or bi-polar that lead to an altered sense of reality. She can be contacted on alexa@dircon.co.uk and her website gives more information about her previous projects http://bit.ly/iXI4PB... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've just returned from a hectic, whistle-stop weekend in London. I went with the duel purpose of looking for somewhere to live and also participating in a residency project with The Vacuum Cleaner http://bit.ly/BK3jp about mental health. While the residency yielded two interesting little videos with a lot of worthwhile discussion, the house hunt ended with two cancelled viewings and a wild goose chase around Archway...... something tells me that looking for somewhere to live in London may require a little tenacity.......I applied to take part in Ship of Fools http://bit.ly/mMbv2O because I hoped it might help me to start developing some of the ideas that I generate through writing in more visual ways. In particular I've retained a morbid fascination with Internet Suicides that originated way before I started this blog. Its odd that it has never really seemed appropriate to write about any of the suicides I have read so much about in any of my posts. I still can't really articulate what it is about these sad, lonely, yet very public deaths that I find so compelling. Its certainly a very difficult subject to broach, given that most people simply dismiss it as attention seeking or as being too perverse to be worthy of attention. So I came up with a proposal to document a jump. Fortunately this didn't require ME to jump off a building (I've not had any suicidal thoughts for ages) instead me and James crafted a fairly ingenious low-fi contraption made out of sponges, cardboard and cable ties that would allow a camera phone to make the 17 story drop from the top of his tower block completely intact and still recording video footage. You can see the resulting videos here http://bit.ly/mk6MisMy favorite part of these films is the hesitation just before the fall. Its powerful to think of making a decision and overcoming that moment where fear threatens to override the wish to jump into oblivion. Obviously we have slowed the footage down to about 10% of its original speed giving the whole thing an air of melancholic detachment. James and I hope to develop this work somehow, probably first and foremost by just making a lot more videos of 'jumps' and seeing which random combinations of falling and spinning create the most interesting video.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been excessively busy for the past month or so, with a lot of emotional upheaval taking place as a result of being made redundant (a case of being forced to leave just as I was about to walk away) so today I've had something of a crash and burn moment and have been very sleepy and a little tearful. I was trying (and failing) to write this afternoon and an email came through from James about the Ship of Fools residency. He said he'd been having some really positive feedback on the videos we made together earlier this month, which reminded me that I ought to post them on here. Watching these videos back today, I suddenly feel the pathos in them with twice the intensity that I did previously. I'm pretty sure that as a person who once felt inclined to jump from a high place and float into the abyss, I will always stay haunted by the possibility. Part of my psyche always somehow wants to keep it available as an option...... just in case. And I guess its that part of my psyche that drove me to want to make these videos. I would love to hear some thoughts and feedback on them, if anyone has some........ Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Last night I woke up in a sweat at some ridiculous hour, after having a nightmare about being trapped in the department store TJ Hughes. Of course I went straight to twitter to fill the void of fragile, sleepless loneliness and came across this image. Its stolen from a tweet by James (shhh don't tell him). Its taken out of the same window where we shot the first suicide video.... and I liked seeing it at a delicate hour of the morning, rather than under the fierce sun that was shinning during the weekend when I was there. I'm told that more people take their own lives in the middle of the day and during the summer than they do at night and in the winter.... seems like the wrong way around, doesn't it?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I'm not sure if its totally reader friendly to be blogging so frequently about suicide. Again I would justify it by saying that these bright and sunny summer months are almost peak suicide season, so the Wikipedia statistics tell me. Before you start wondering don't worry... its not something that I am considering at present! To stay on topic I watched The Bridge by Eric Steel last night. Its a documentary shot on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The camera crew captured 23 of the 24 people who jumped from the bridge in that year. Its is the most popular suicide destination in the world. Although its an outsider documenting the suicide jump and isn't shot as a 'point of view' as some self documented suicides might be, it definitely relates somehow to themes of grandiosity or what is referred to in the marketing copy for the film as 'The Fatal Grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge.' A life spent in torment can perhaps be redeemed by inventing a sensational or glamorous death? If you don't want to document your own suicide then why not jump at the most notorious suicide location in the world? Not only did the directors document all of the jumps, but they managed to catch up with eyewitnesses and the friends and families of their suicidal subjects. The perspective that this gives the viewer is harrowing. So much of the footage is utterly sublime, but there is one particular protagonist who stands out. He is called Gene Sprague and his long hair silhouetted against in the sun almost turns him into a living ghost, even before he jumps. His story runs throughout the film and reaches a crescendo with his jump, which is also spellbinding. Watch it:... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Yesterday I struggled to get any work done as I tuned in to a live stream project called Purge by performance artist Brian Lobel I've always found artists live stream projects to be particularly compelling, there is something about seeing a real time relay that I find fascinating. Historically I've loved Coco Fusco's early live stream work because rather than just being a live broadcast of a piece of performance art, its also a work about the nature of surveillance, so the form suits the content. And its the same with Purge, which is a live broadcast of Brian going through all of his 1000+ facebook friends and then asking a panel of judges if he should keep them or delete them. Admittedly quite a banal idea, the process actually becomes totally compelling when you hear the artist tell indiscreet little stories about people from his past, or give his honest, vaguely formed opinions of people that he admittedly doesn't even know so well. Naturally as a viewer and facebook friend of Brian I feel compelled to keep observing and know if the judges will think me worthy enough for Brian to retain my friendship. And its this narcissism of watching that is the most intelligent aspect of the project. Social networks such as facebook thrive on the users wish to to create a particular public persona or to somehow perform the self. The project is also a really compelling reply to some of the writing I've done on here about the notion of intimacy in online relationships. Its clear from Brain's process that some of his facebook 'friends' represent deep and intimate connections of which social networks are a valued part. Other so called facebook 'friends' amount to only a vague acquaintance of people to whom he is totally indifferent. I've met Brian once and added him perhaps out of 'professional curiosity' after he applied to participate in performance platform I was helping to curate with a proposal that would have seen him pretending to masturbate in the gents toilets of the arts venue. We turned the piece down... I wonder if he remembers and will see this as a necessary justification for deletion! Its online during the day until Sunday 10th July and you can watch the live stream here  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 Apparently Google is now 'a replacement for the ancient human faculty of memory,' according to an article I have just spied in the Guardian. I love this kind of speculation that technology changes the shape and connections in the human brain. Although I am not totally sure that I can believe the articles thesis that Google is teaching us to remember information in new ways. For example; I have kept a huge filing cabinet of info on interesting exhibitions and articles that I have enjoyed for the past five years or so. I take great pleasure in the alphabetical filing system I have created for cataloguing the info, it allows me to indulge my inner secretary! I am not sure why this process is any different to something like online bookmarking or search engines, both things seem like similar approaches to information retrieval. One is an old system and one is new and dependent on a technological engine. Principal researcher Betsey Sparrow (beautiful name) says that internet has become "an external memory source that we can access at any time." The article says that this makes the internet an "arena where information is stored collectively outside ourselves." It does then move on to say that this is very similar to the "collective memory" that we rely upon among our family, colleagues and friends. So in essence if we are already primed to remember information that is outside of ourselves, why does the technological or mediated extension of this process amount to - so the article seems to suggest- a fundamental change in how our brain works?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I'm fascinated and somewhat infuriated by this article in the Guardian. An author who calls himself an 'academic' writing under a pseudonym (irritating in itself) has railed against internet dating, arguing that it is turning falling in love into a process of calculation. The implication seems to be that technology instrumentalises the process of falling in love. I've actually posted a comment which counters this by suggesting that love and sexuality were instrumentalised by the media well before the invention of the internet. I'm imagining that I will be drowned out by the male academic infighting that seems to be the order of the day. None the less here is what I wrote: This article is not about internet dating, its about how the media impacts on society and the choices that people make. Global capitalism and the language of advertising do encourage homogenisation and create rigid stereotypes about what individuals should expect to find attractive. But love became a sale-able commodity way before the internet was invented: on TV, in the press and in bars where people go to pick up easy sex. The net is just another tool for making money out of the human desire to be loved. While McLuhan may have been been on to something when he said that 'the medium is the message,' I don't think he was asking us to consider each medium individually, but to think more holistically about the entire spectrum of communication. To blame the commodification of love on the internet suggests ignorance of the wider society we live in.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've finally arrived in London after about three years of trying to move here! Isn't that wonderful? I'm starting my MRes at The London Consortium in October, which means that I have about seven weeks to find my feet in my new city. This feels like an excellent time to reflect, regroup and..... eh..... explore the boozers of Central London! At intervals between pub visits I've had my eyes down and my laptop out. I've scored a freelance contract working for the AND Festival on a project with New York based artist Brody Condon, which relates fantastically well to my Mres research topic. Level Five is a participatory performance focused on critically exploring  group therapy seminars from the 1970′s, using live role playing techniques. We are inviting artists, performers and members of the public to participate in a physically and psychologically intense day-long event that will loosely follow the structure of early Large Group Awareness Trainings, using long form improv techniques influenced by progressive Nordic live role-playing and performative group therapy. The performance will be recorded and broadcast live to a public audience outside of the performance space and will also be edited into a film to be exhibited at FACT later in the year. Brody's main motivation for exploring these historical gatherings is to examine their ideological legacy and its influence on contemporary culture. Much of their rhetoric is still evident in the pop-psychology and self help culture of today. Speaking as somebody who has done a lot of one-on-one psychotherapy, its fascinating to see how these seminars simplified and commercialized therapeutic thinking.  In the documentary Century of the Self Adam Curtis says that: “The trainings became hugely successful… But in the process, the political idea that had begun the movement for personal transformation began to disappear. The original vision… had been that through discovering the self a new culture would be born, one that would challenge the power of the state. What was now emerging was the idea that people could be happy, simply within themselves. And that changing society was irrelevant.” I'm the first port of call for anyone who's interested in getting involved, so for more info please drop me a line on vanessa@andfestival.org.uk Brody is also in the UK next week and will be giving a talk about the project at Forest Gallery Edinburgh and at FACT in Liverpool. Let me know if you would like to come along!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I'm pretty sure that if doctors started prescribing New York based radio show This American Life to depressed patients, they'd see some good results. I've become an avid listener since I rocked up in the big smoke, mainly because the shows are so good at making you feel like part of a conversation. Its great for alleviating loneliness, putting things into perspective and offering up some fascinating chat on a load of random topics. Not that I am lonely as such, but of course big cities can be alienating and I am still finding my feet. Yesterday was my one month anniversary in my new city and I'm pretty amused that the babbling of a US radio show feels like my soundtrack to life here so far. I listened to a show about relationship break ups yesterday and it really got me thinking about people I've left behind in other cites I've lived in so far in my life. But the jewel in the crown of my listening so far has to be The Psychopath Test, part narrated by the awesome Jon Ronson. The show essentially begs the question; how do you tell if someone is a psychopath? And points out the massive ambiguities that can arise when you attempt to give psychological disorders a fixed definition. One of points made to this effect is that often CEOs of big corporate organisations have all of the traits of full on psychopathy..... and based on my time spent working in large arts organisations I have to say I can totally believe it! Character traits included lack of empathy, manipulation, intelligence and grandiosity. Isn't it interesting to think that the measure by which you possess these qualities could push you either to be highly successful or totally and utterly bonkers?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've had a few people ask me why the videos that I posted on the 20th June are currently offline. They were films about imaginary suicide jumps and were the product of my stay at The Vacuum Cleaner's residency Ship of Fools; a project about art and mental health. We filmed them by throwing camera phones out of the windows of his tower block in Hackney and slowing down the footage that this generated. On the 16th July somebody committed suicide by jumping from the 11th floor of the same tower block. It was a total shock to both of us and especially upsetting for James as he had to witness the aftermath. Out of respect for the deceased and his family and to help ease the trauma that we both felt, we have taken the videos offline for the time being. They currently remain private. I went round to James's flat on Saturday, for the first time since it happened. We had a really long conversation about what this series of events means ethically for us as artists making work about suicide and whether we can still take forward our plans to develop the videos. For me it was important to go through a process of defining our motives and clarifying what we would want our work to say to audiences. James spoke to me about what happened in the immediate aftermath of the jump. He talked about being on the market just outside of his block and hearing people repeatedly asking the question 'why would you do that?' Yet we both agreed that the question for us would be 'why wouldn't you do that?' I feel that until we overcome the taboo of suicide to understand that it can be a psychologically hardwired impulse that makes perfect sense to some individuals, we can never have a frank discussion about how to help.  For this reason James and I will keep working together on our jump videos, although we will expand to explore other sites. We probably won't save any lives by making art (although you never know) but we might just slightly shift somebody's understanding of the issues. Of course we will also be taking advantage of the morbid curiosity that makes suicide such a compelling subject for viewers and speculators, but nobody's moral compass is ever perfectly tuned.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I was mooching about on the Guardian website a few days ago and I came across this announcement that Bobby Baker's diaries Mental Illness and Me have just won the Mind Book of the Year award. I saw the contents of this diary in an exhibition at at The Welcome Collection in 2009 and the experience was deeply formative for my early thinking about links between art and mental health. The shortlist for this year's prize is quite formidable, but I was particularly pleased to see Candia McWilliam's book What to Look for in Winter featured. I hauled a huge dog eared copy of this book around with me for several months earlier this year and often sat with tears in my eyes on trains and buses while I read the author's account of her struggles with alcoholism and blindness. I'd have awarded this book the prize in a flash, but I can see why the brutal and immediate visual style of Bobby Baker's drawings came out on top. As former Mind Book of the Year prizewinner John O'Donoghue points out, this book is deeply powerful as a meeting point between thinking, writing and making visual art about mental health issues.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I rocked up to the private view of the ICA's Freeze offering last night to check out what I would call a 'mixed' bag of work. Both the painterly and sculptural pieces on offer (by Jacob Kassay and Franz West) carried the dull whiff of the commercial art world, perhaps not surprising given that Gregor Muir former director of Hauser and Wirth is now at the helm. Thankfully the work of a third artist Frances Stark, tucked away in what used to be the ICA's theatre space turned out to be a compelling and thought provoking film installation about the intricacies of intimacy in online dating. My Best Thing (named after a slang term one character uses for his genitals) is a single channel animated video that tracks the online relationship between the artist and two men. It veers entertainingly between masturbation and sometimes self conscious intellectual debate. Both the artist and her lovers are represented on screen by avatars that have computerised voices. The male characters also have subtitled speech. While the avatars remain motionless during masturbation (thank goodness) the subtitles and robotic vocals offer staccato representations of relationships that feel intimate despite their remoteness. As the characters interact more frequently over time, the couplings begin to involve many complications, with each partner obviously revealing heavily edited versions of their offline existence. As the ICA's free sheet points out "Through the medium of animation, Stark raises questions about the difference between therapeutic confession and performance"  Obviously this duality between cathartic online confessional and partial self revelation reflects the kind of concerns that are central to my research. I've talked frequently both on here and in my MRes pitch about the increasing practice of online psychotherapy and the general insinuation made in a recent addition of Journal for Clinical Psychology that sometimes patients reveal more in depth personal information when talking to a therapist via a computer. How much of the identities revealed in My Best Thing are based on truth to life is impossible to tell, but as a viewer attempting to join the dots is fascinating. I've become super interested in the evolution of the ICA as a public space since I wrote this article for the Guardian.  I'm hoping that I will be well positioned to track their future progress, given that they are part of the consortia that runs the MRes I'm currently sitting. I really hope that their new director continues to show this kind of compelling video work and goes for a little less of the whiffy commercial painting!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106 I've been engaging in some intensive debate with the irreverent Sid Volter on Lars Von Trier's latest cinematic offering: Melancholia. Sid is of the opinion that the film offers up one of the best portraits of a character with chronic clinical depression that he has seen at the cinema. While I am not inclined to disagree entirely with this sentiment, I remain hacked off with the fact that again and again, the mainstream media insists on portraying the depressed woman against a backdrop of glamour and affluence. For those of you who have not seen the movie, check the trailer that I have posted here. Kirsten Dunst plays a passive aggressive depressive who manages to destroy her marriage on her wedding night and later comes to live with her affluent sister, where she plays out her illness against a backdrop of idle indifference and crystal chandeliers. The imagery constantly links women and nature as seen 1min into the trailer where Dunst is depicted naked, gazing skyward as a architypal reclining nude.  There's also a hefty stench of the Freudian hysteria stereotype attached to Dunst's role as the promiscuous disobedient wife who fails to satisfy her husband's need for sex on their wedding night. Yes the depression is quite convincing, but what a shame that is comes wrapped in gender stereotype and archaic cliche. I've blogged here before about women like Sally Brampton and Emma Forrest who seem to embody the popular perception of the depressed female. I don't at all discount their symptoms as genuine, but at the same time I'm not surprised when journalists such as Janet Street Porter (a generally ridiculous individual for all other intents and purposes) question links between gender, depression and affluence. There must be some well crafted female depressive characters out there in film. Would anyone like to suggest one to cheer me up a bit?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/626106