The Nearness of Things

Investigation of potentials in the subconscious informed by the role of women in psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

"Distance is only a psychic and ideological construct designed to protect me from the nearness of things"

(Timothy Morton, "Hyperobjects")

In this series I deal associatively with "female pain" from a feminist perspective.

I abstract ways of encountering the subconscious that I observed and documented during hypnosis sessions and in the sleep laboratory.

Inspired by these visual examinations, I stage scenes that suggest similar attempts. I also approach the possible nature, materiality and (in-) accessibility of the subconscious.

The protagonists' apparent desire for self-empowerment stands in clear contrast to the uncontrollability and sheer size and inconceivability of this hyperobject and opens up questions of control, coercion and self-optimization. In the pictures, this condenses into a conflict that the women face in a state of torpor. I examine the area of tension between support and dependency and the persistence in a given posture or the failure of this task. I also question the dichotomous concept of therapist and patient and the pathologization of female connoted symptoms that can only be made and reproduced through traumatic experiences within a patriarchal system.

My work is characterized by research on the role of women in psychiatry and psychoanalysis as well as the biographies and works of female poets, especially those associated with confessional poetry.

Although some of the images have a documentary character, I have focused on abstractions in these situations. I am interested in the moment that lies on the border between documentation and staging. The results are deconstructed to an extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted.

The subconscious has the potential to oppose the effort to classify, to lable and to measure. That is one of the qualities that I am particularly interested in.

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Hyposis I
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Hyposis I

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Immersion
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Immersion

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Restraint
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Restraint

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Touch
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Touch

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Stand I
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Stand I

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Measured
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Measured

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Compressorium
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Compressorium

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Hypnosis II
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Hypnosis II

© Louisa Boeszoermeny - Spring
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Spring

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