My Other Self.

Aside from my project work from I've also been working on some photography about my experience of Epilepsy itself. For now I'm going to use the title My Other Self. If anything its to say that this is something that I cannot control and one of the ways that a tutor and I talked about was how it's like I'm taken over by something. That something takes control of my entire body and tells it to act a certain way, for a certain amount of time, without my actual self knowing until its to late. It steals moments of my life. These moments can be from seconds to minutes to hours. For those moments I am not myself. 

Theres this bit in my house where the stairs go to nowhere. Its just a strange little space that I thought might be interesting to play with. It's a mostly hidden condition so its easy to hide a lot of the struggles it makes. Its a contant struggle and in a way like a weight hanging over you at all times. It gives a feeling of intense urgency and threat. It can strike whenever and disrupt whatever you might be doing. I suppose I feel so drawn to this space because of its sense of displacement. It had a purpose once, the stairs went to somewhere. Now they are rendered almost pointless and somewhat confused in their aim.

So I thought it would be a good place to start trying out ways to capture a 'feeling' if you will.

 

  

So out came the camera and Istarted trying to find a way to explain how I sometimes feel. I'm overwhelmed by something that I cannot quiet understand. This mass of incomprehensible confusion. I'm not sure why I have chosen to keep my legs in focus though. It was just something I instinctively did. Perhaps Its because no matter how  much this condition has turned my life upside down, I'm still living and as much as my life has changed I still have certain things I can focus on and aim towards. It has taken over control of my life no matter how much I wish it hadn't. But not everything. There are certain things I still have control of for the majority of the time. And above all else I know that it could be so much worse.

Anywho I thought I'd share the outcome of my little experiment. There are plenty more ideas flowing through my mind that I want to make visual. And hopefully I will. Strangely it makes me feel better to be able to visualise something that has been floating around in my brain. Its like I get a sense of relief to be able to transfer my thoughts on to paper (or into a photograph in this case ..well I do study photography after all!!)

I have no idea if these ideas will become a part of my university work...I'll count it towards my research at least! :D 

XX