Video

Title:
Psych|OS
Digital Cocaine - Children of the 1980s

DVD, Installation, 00:01:10, 2005
Edition of 5 + 1 a.p.

Author: UBERMORGEN.COM

"...I shall have to speak much in images ... only approximately correct; for the only way a human being can make supernatural matters, which in their essence must always remain incomprehensible, ... Where intellectual understanding ends, the domain of belief begins..."
Daniel Paul Schreber "Memoirs of My Nervous Illness"

"In October 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found..." http://blairwitch.com "
The Blairwitch Project"

In March 2002, ubermorgens Hans Bernhard(0) experienced a manic outbreak [bipolar affective disorder(1)(2)] in Capetown, South-Africa. He was airlifted to Austria - General Hospital Vienna. Two and a half years later, UBERMORGEN found video footage of his stay at the Mental hospital - Station 4B, Department of Psychiatry. They decide to release the material unedited, only with minimal contextual information to go along with:

"We(3) are the children of the 1980s, We are the first internet-pop-generation. We grew up with radical Michael Milken [The King of Junk Bonds] and mythical Michael Jackson [The King of Junk Pop]. Hans Bernhard is loaded with 10 years of internet & tech [digital cocaine], mass media hacking, underground techno, hardcore [illegal] drugs, rock&roll lifestyle and net.art jet set [etoy]. His neuronal networks and brain structures are similar to the global synthetic network he helped build up and maintained subversive activity within. And now they are "infected" by a manic-depression [WHO ICD-10, F31.1.] (1), both Hans Bernhard and The "Network" are infected by this structural disorder. Waves of mania and depression are running through the technical, social and economic structures. Contemporary high-tech societies deal with hardcore brains using bio-chemical "agents" to control the internal information flow, we call them psychotropic drugs. Hans Bernhard was legally sloshed by Zyprexa®, Temesta®, Dominal®, Depakine®, Neurotop® (4). But how can we treat a mentally ill global network?"

The Installation is a common projection, a sensitive membrane [the screen] which serves as a thin skin which is penetrated by light and onto which a unique reality is projected. This membrane moves if you touch it or it curls if you blow: the image twists. The membrane represents the human and the network - it is hypersensitive. The sound is played quietly via speakers and very fat via earphones. The room is bright with daylight so the mood of the viewer is influenced by the weather outside. There is no difference to a room in a mental hospital.

(0) http://hansbernhard.com
(1) WHO, ICD-10 Classification: F31.1 Bipolar affective disorder, current episode manic without psychotic symptoms
(2) http://hansbernhard.com/TEXT/2000_2002/2002_BRAIN_MELTDOWN/
(3) The net.art Duo UBERMORGEN [lizvlx and Hans Bernhard]
(4) http://hansbernhard.com/drugs

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