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Viewing single post of blog Group Therapy

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……


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