A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams
A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams, 2009
A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams, 2009-2010
Sound and slide installation, 24’ audio on CD, 80 slides with slideprojector, printed matter 40 large posters, steel bench, 3 lightboxes, gelatin silver prints of sections of a human brain in vitrines, all unique pieces
The installation, A short story about memory, pentothal and dreams, consists of several components – an audio work that can be heard throughout the exhibition space, a slide projection, a metal bench, a vitrine with a photograph of a cross-section of a human brain, lightboxes with large format slides and photographs which are fragments taken from postcards. The audio work, presented earlier in the Prix de Rome exhibition in 2009, consists of recordings of psychoanalytic sessions that took place in the Netherlands between 1987 and 1991. It is only from one sentence noted in the protocol: “Seventh session. Mr. Dik de Boef, under the effects of pentothal...,” that the listener is enabled to categorise the recording and understand that it concerns a person undergoing treatment by the controversial psychiatrist Prof. Jan Bastiaans. From the 1980s onwards, he employed LSD as well as Pentothal, also known as the “truth drug”, in the therapy of trauma patients from the Second World War. The slides and photographs are imagery taken from postcards that the Pentothal manufacturer would send to his clients. These seemingly innocent photographs of touristic spots were used as advertisment for the Pentothal drug. Details and fragments of information in the recordings, but also in the fragmented photographs, allow the visitor to experience a collective mnemonic scenario. Here, it is not only a matter of one individual’s perspective, but of a history we all share in – the terrible events of the war and the factors that caused it from a psychoanalytical viewpoint. Here, these events take shape between a dream state and wakefulness, under the influence of drugs and psychodrama.
Selected sections of a human brain
Yellow, 2010
16mm film with optical sound, dutch, 22’ with subtitles english/italian
looped. In total edition of 4 + 1 A/P,
Variation of the installation A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams with the audio work, a 16mm film with subtitles and steel bench (Installationview with metal bench Galleria di Civica in Trento).
A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams
A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams, 2009, Installation view with lightboxes Pharmaceutical dreams II and III
A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams
Pharmaceutical dreams II, 2009
Lightbox, metal, neon, plexiglas with 9 slides 6x7
35 x 35 x 30 cm
Selected sections of a human brain
Selected sections of a human brain, 2009-2010
Installation with silver gelatin prints on baryth paper on steel table
13 prints large and medium size approx. 45 x 60 cm and 35 x 45 cm
(Installationview Galleria di Civica in Trento)
A short story about memory, Pentothal and dreams
Selected sections of a human brain, 2009-2010
Silver gelatin print on baryth paper,
35 x 45 cm in vitrine
1 + 1 A/P
