The Artist Statement.

Ok so below is my ALMOST final artist statement for curreny university project. Hopefully it makes a least a little bit of sense and can reveal in a little more detail than previous posts what I am aiming to achieve with my work.

PA5 Artist Statement.

We all have questions we ask ourselves. But how many times have you ever found yourself having to ask “what is my name?” When losing grip on reality becomes your reality, a question as simple as this is suddenly the most significant you will ever have to ask yourself, although it doesn’t usually stand alone. For me it’s the beginning of a series of questions that become vital in regaining control of my own mind. I have to teach myself why I am in the situation I am living at that moment. I have to ask myself these questions to bring myself back to a state of understanding of my own conscious. 

Using myself and my personal experiences as subject my work looks to represent the altered states of consciousness related to seizures typical of epilepsy. In this case those termed as Tonic-Clonic and Absence seizures. As you return to consciousness following a seizure the state of confusion is incredibly intense. Nothing makes sense. Nothing looks, sounds or feels “right”. Surroundings shift and alter with no control. However there is nothing you can do but wait and let the moment sink in. The sense of relief as everything returns to normal is enormous. Although you know something is missing. That something is time. It has somehow slipped into a moment you cannot grasp. A moment where there is no structure, time, pain or feeling. Just an incomprehensible feeling of indefinite space. 

It is only when you try to describe the experience that you begin to realise just how inconceivable this moment was. It’s almost impossible to explain. It’s overwhelming. The need to fill that missing moment is so intensely urgent. It’s like trying to explain the most incredible sunset to someone who wasn’t there to witness it. There are only so many times you can attempt to describe it. If they were not there to experience it how can they possibly draw anything to compare it too? It is the same for when it comes to the subject of altered states of consciousness. It begs the question is it possible for someone who has never experienced a seizure to even begin to relate to the unbearable frustrations of missing time? Not to mention the intense threat that constantly looms over your every living moment. 

Using a combination of video, sound and photographic prints, it is the missing moments that a seizure creates and the confusion that immediately follows that I am attempting to visualise. I am in effect trying to make something that is essentially invisible, visible. To visualise a moment that has no structure, no time, no explanation, no image. A moment that is so unique to the one to have experienced it, it may be near impossible for an outside viewer to see.

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