ARTISTS TALKING

# 49 [2 July 2011]

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?

# 48 [20 June 2011]

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.....

# 47 [6 June 2011]

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/mk6Mis

My 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.

# 46 [3 May 2011]

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

# 45 [2 May 2011]

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.

# 44 [2 May 2011]

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

# 43 [28 April 2011]

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.

# 42 [5 March 2011]

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

# 41 [21 February 2011]

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/i0o5Gq

But anyway... its now half past midnight and I have work in the morning. I promise to not wait so long until I write again.

# 40 [9 January 2011]

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.