This document discusses an artistic research PhD project called "Labyrinth Psychotica" that aims to create immersive labyrinthine and wearable multimedia installations to better understand the subjective experience of psychosis. The goal is to develop a tool for empathy and improve practices around simulating psychosis. Influences include works that explore thought processes. Methods proposed include augmented reality technology, paper-based devices, and sensory manipulation to distort perceptions of reality. The project examines how art can provide insights into psychotic thoughts and realities.

1. Roomforthough
ts
jennifer@roomforthoughts.com

2. What is a thought?
What is a thought?
What is a thought?

3. Fashion background with an interest
in thoughtless processes

4. Beyond Reason
Art and Psychosis

5. Birth of a thought? Space as clothing? Art as
materialised thoughts?

6. Artistic Research?
If art is a form of knowledge
production then what kind of
knowledge would my art practice
contain?

7. What is lost? Or gained when I
break down my work?

8. Where is the art in artistic research?
- complex connections and collaborations
- in original methods (installation art)
- in the experience of the viewer!
- experience as a form of knowledge production
- in the thoughts that are born from the experience
- in the questions that are born
Influences: James Lee Byars- World Question Centre,
Outsider Art, Thomas Hirschhorn, Lygia Clark, Eva
Hesse, Happenings by Allan Kaprow, Surrealists
(in relation to thoughtless processes)

9. Thoughts are my materials that I weave
into ‘clothing’ that a viewer can wear.
Can I try on the thoughts and
experiences of another?

10. LABYRINTH PSYCHOTICA

11. LABYRINTH PSYCHOTICA
Creating and Using immersive Labyrinthine and wearable Multi
Media Interactive Installation Art as a Tool that Could Help
Better Understand the Subjective Experience of Psychosis

12. LABYRINTH PSYCHOTICA
artistic research PhD project

13. LABYRINTH PSYCHOTICA
artistic research PhD project
aim: improving the practice
of psychosis simulation

14. LABYRINTH PSYCHOTICA
artistic research PhD project
a tool of empathy
aim: improving the practice
of psychosis simulation

15. LABYRINTH PSYCHOTICA
artistic research PhD project
a tool of empathy
Anti-Stigma
aim: improving the practice
of psychosis simulation

16. What is psychosis?
Psychosis is considered as a severe
mental disorder, a set of symptoms, in
which thoughts and emotions are so
impaired that contact is lost with
external reality.
a ‘Reality Disorder’ also known as a
‘Thought Disorder’...

17. peculiar symptoms:
• hearing voices that others do not hear
• seeing things that others do not see
• believing that you are being watched, followed or
persecuted by others
• believing that others can control your thoughts, or
that you can control the thoughts of others
• feeling that your thoughts have sped up or slowed down
Interesting for an artist: Thoughts seem to become
objectified...
In psychosis, thoughts are experienced as real!

18. Can an artwork say something about
what it is like to be psychotic?
It’s easy to say yes... (think about ‘the
Scream’ by Munch)
If yes, how to capture that and put it in a
scientific context?

19. sympathy and empathy
To gain a grip on the subjective
experience of the other we need to
empathise.
Empathy is the mental simulation of the
experience of the other.

20. Simulation, why is this hard?
"Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make
everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness
produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littré).
Simulacra and Simulation Baudrillard refering to Emile Littré

21. What are we looking for??
Eextreme example
Why would we want to
simulate that???
It’s important because 3
in 100 people experience
a psychosis in their
lives!
It is important to gain
a better grip on the
subjective logic in a
psychosis. Art can make
a contribution in this.

22. Bariers of the mental simulation
of the other
Epley and Caruso:
• actively and consciously want to simulate
• our brains like to fill gaps with clichés of
the media
• our brain shows no activity when the
experience of the other is too different from
our own...
Nicholas Epley and Eugene M. Caruso, ‘Perspective Taking: Misstepping Into
Others’ Shoes of the Handbook of Mental simulation and imagination,

23. We need a tool to help our
imagination!

24. Case Study 1 Suicide Pigeon
Foto’s Thomas Lenden (behalve de duif en voeten)

25. Case Study 1 not a
dead end labyrinth
emergency exit
centre
one entrance
emergency exit
dead end
What is it like to be a clear thought in a psychotic mind?

26. Isolation cell

27. Color white

28. fragility

29. details
Large photo’s by Thomas Lenden

30. Symbols that are enlarged

31. Layered realities

32. Role of a performative viewer?
photo by Thomas Lenden

33. detail

34. What does the viewer take with them?

35. Case study 2, INTRUDER
Brainspotting festival

36. psychosis simulation projects
virtual teaching and awareness environments
for mental health workers, police and
students, providing a method for generating
empathy, also among family members and
relatives.
Goggles developed by Janssen-Cilag

37. example 1) psychosis simulator
Queensland University
Sponsored by Eli Lilly

38. Example 2) Second Life
Virtual Hallucinations project
University of California, Davis
Dr. Peter Yellowlees and Dr. Kevin Burrage
University of Queensland, Australia
Advanced Computational Modeling Centre

39. example 3) Paved with Fear
•Luide geluiden
•film
•Bewegend vloer
a psychosis simulator in a truck that travels through Europe developed by Jansen Cilag in 2000

40. Newspaper hallucination
Second Life

41. Newspaper hallucination
Paved with Fear

42. Newspaper hallucination

43. Newspaper hallucination

44. Paper Labyrinths
Photo’s by Thomas Lenden

45. Adam and Eve’s apple, guilty apple, I know everything apple
the BIG APPLE, guilty of 9-11
Green Apple Psychosis
whispers
green is the contrast color of red, red is blood, life, death
snow white's poisonous apple
apple of my eye
apple of my eye
they are watching me apple of my eye
apple of my eye apple of my eye
apple of my eye
apple of my eye
apple of my eye
apple of my eye
apple of my eye
apple of my eye
You are the APPLE of my EYE, the apples have eyes
photo by Thomas Lenden Newtons apple, the apple does not fall far from the tree

46. Case study 3: 5 month artist in residency 2008
Museum Het Dolhuys
 1320 town leper centre
 1564 loony wing
 1653 plague house was added
 2007 a museum of madness

47. Augmented Reality
Technology Wearable:
Integrating the virtual with the real
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIof7yEsOn8

48. transfer of the paper experience

49. HMD’s and De Waag:
Realty Perception Distortion Mask

50. Paper HMD?:
http://rdhorrorproject.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
http://rdhorrorproject.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
http://holykaw.alltop.com/funny-paper-bag-masks

51. Paper HMD?:

52. Labyrinth and Brain
“The boundaries between ill
and not ill seem to dissolve
for the artist and the
patients.”
http://www.canstockphoto.com/circle-maze-puzzle-as-a-brain-in-1647697.html
http://www.kijo.no/2010/02/
http://z11.invisionfree.com/Chaos_Order/index.php?showtopic=2651&st=20

53. Brain Mask
“The boundaries between ill
and not ill seem to dissolve
for the artist and the
patients.”
http://alternatywnie.wordpress.com/2010/02/page/2/
http://gizmoblog.net/magic-thinking-cap-brain-hat/
http://iheartguts.com/category/artsy-guts/page/28
http://cubeme.com/blog/category/featured-articles/
http://www.buymotorcyclehelmets.com/House+of+Kolor
+Candy+Red+Helmet+Airbrush+Helmets~~392.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/amigarad/323002763/
http://hannacormick.blogspot.com/
http://cyclicalcreativity.blogspot.com/2009/08/brain.html

54. HMD:
http://www.virtualworldlets.net/Resources/Dictionary.php?Term=Goggles

55. Brain HMD:
http://www.virtualworldlets.net/Resources/Dictionary.php?Term=Goggles

56. conceptually:
- represents empathy as
trying to get into the
brain of the other
- psychosis considered
as a brain disorder
- thoughts enlarged
- location of imagination
- location of reality
constructions
- winks at the notion of
who the expert is
Hide cables in brain stem...

57. visual hallucinations:
http://www.thebridgepai.com/wp-content/whitney.jpg
http://rdhorrorproject.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
http://www.boiseweekly.com/Cobweb/archives/2010/05/24/yes-maybe-no-opening-reception

58. video processing:
- slow motion of faces
- text
- subliminal images

59. sound design:
- hearing voices
- irritating sounds

60. tricks:
http://above-thefold.com/blog/2008/09/17/throbbing-gristle-collaborate-with-artist-cerith-wyn-evans/
- Audio spotlights
- Binaural recording

61. diminished reality:
http://www.planetdamage.com/2010/10/11/diminished-reality-basically-photoshop-for-videos/

62. God Helmut:
- weak magnetic fields
“Persinger's lab that duplicates out-of-body
experiences, near-death experiences, alien
abductions, and other paranormal phenomena.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104291534&ps=rs

63. Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a )
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! ! ! ! !
roomforthoughts !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! ! ! ! !
www.roomforthoughts.com
THANKS!
jennifer@roomforthoughts.com
thanks:
- het Dolhuys
- M-Node,PlANETARY COLLEGIUM
- Prins Bernard Cultuur Fonds
- Scholingsfonds voor Kunst en Cultuur
- Fonds voor Beeldende Kunsten
- Janssen-Cilag/Johnson & Johnson
- Nikola Nikolov and Jennifer Steetskamp