BE MY WITNESS!
… is what the woman Sissi, diagnosed as schizophrenic, calls out to
her psychoanalyst, right after she has revealed the cause of her
troubles. Sissi was the first patient of Françoise Davoine, the analyst
and main character – and actress playing herself – in the feature film A Long History of Madness.
Like Freud’s Dora, Sissi dismissed Françoise, who seemed incapable of
helping her. Twenty years later, and still confined to a psychiatric
hospital, Sissi’s “second chance” in the shape of anothar analyst,
slowly but surely allows her to reach into her deepest darkest self. The
analyst, this time, is not afraid of putting herself on the line, an
identification that allows the unattainable memories to come to the
surface.
In Western culture, “madness”, or what is called by a variety of
medicalising labels, psychosis, schizophrenia, sociopathology and the
likes, remains the last frontier, the form of otherness that is hardest
to deal with. Madness is not confined to groups of ethnic, sexual, age-
or racial definition. Perhaps it is because we cannot define and then
relegate it to elsewhere, it is so difficult to overcome the boundary
that separates the mad from the allegedly sane, thus leaving them to
social ostracism and loneliness. Yet, frequently, the alleged madness
expresses itself in a surplus: hearing more voices than the sane, the
mad have a richer psychic life.
For Sissi, this surplus takes the form of her imperial demeanour: she
thinks she is (like) her namesake, the empress of Austria-Hungary. She
spends time and money to dress and coif accordingly, wear extravagant
albeit non-precious jewellery, and talks from high-up to her analyst.
And it is because the latter is able to see how, in fact, Sissi “treats”
her as much as the other way around that Sissi is enabled to reach into
her darkest past.
Between art and its viewers, something of the same order is possible.
The video piece Eine zweite Chance takes the viewer trough twelve
analytical sessions that reshape psychoanalysis itself, making the
theory effective in addressing madness thanks to an extreme Xnidentification and equality. It also offers such attitude for
consideration to the viewer of art, enabled, equally, to learn to accept
the enrichment otherness can bring, and thus endorse the role of
witness. In a shorter, silent video, Sissi Outside, Sissi is
shown in her environment outside, on the historic island of Seili
(Sjalö) where a Foucault-type leprosy colony transformed into an asylum
for the insane, forms the backdrop of confinement. The land and its
histories are also witnesses. The exhibit Sissi’s Skins
consists of a few of the dresses and jewellery Sissi wears in the video.
In one sense, these objects erase the strict boundary between fiction
and documentary. For, they are real, and wearable. In another sense,
these are her closest witnesses; objects that were with her, like a
second skin; and through the dignity they confer upon her, they protect
her against renewed assault.
Sissi Outside, Mieke Bal and Michelle Williams Gamaker
The video works by Mieka Bal and Michelle Williams Gamaker are related to the feature film, A Long History of Madness, on view at Topkino from May 12 to 19.
Be My Witness! is part of „NARRATION UND MIGRATION - Art-based Research / Research-based Art” that takes place in Vienna from May 8 to 26 in cooperation with tfm | Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, Brunnenpassage and Topkino.
