Saturday, 7 November 2015

Voices of the divided selves- a short experimental film


The book 'The Divided Self' by one of my favourite people of all time, R.D. Laing, explains psychosis in a way that allows the 'non-psychotic reader' to dip into the minds of some of Laing's patients and understand that madness is a concept that we constructed and then marginalised, put under the microscope, talk of as if those affected by it are entirely different from us. Madness, Laing posits, does not exist, for it's only a sane reaction to an insane environment. The book re-frames the psychotic minds that fill the pages with a lot of non-nonsense, which is to say, making a lot of sense. 
I went through the book and highlighted direct quotes spoken by psychotic patients. I then used them in the film above, which is just for eyes to feast on lights and colour behind the words that don't sound so mad after all.