emdr

The video combines physical and psychological trauma sequences from the film Amores Perros, and Celebration. Using the therapeutic technique, EMDR, lights are overlaid onto the surface of the film, and flash from left to right and back again, corresponding with the images and what could be the sympathetic breathing of the viewer as stimulated by the sequence.EMDR is based on research that suggests that the right brain is where trauma is imprisoned in a global, non-verbal, emotional memory set, devoid of logic and “real” time sense. Stranded in the past through trauma, a person incessantly selects and misinterprets current environmental triggers, evoking the original trauma anxiety. The movement of lights allows the memory to shift from right to left brain functions, where the trauma can be cognitively processed and placed upon a “real time” continuum, that is as a past experience independent of current stimuli. The work is also inspired by an excerpt from the writing of Hal Foster: “On the one hand to possess the obscene vitality of the wound, and, on the other, to occupy the radical nihility of the corpse….or “it hurts, I can’t feel anything.”

Vancouver, BC
Western Front Gallery
Curated by Victoria Singh
2003