Whilst lying in my cocoon for days I played certain videos on repeat, finding elements within them that related to my work or state of mind. The heavy lulling rhythm and ephemeral visuals of the film 'The End' by Erik Madigan Heck seemed to mirror the weight within my body and the oppressive mist within my head. I played it over and over letting my mind drift in and out, as if I were privy to someone else's memories being slowly played out in monochrome. I was carried by its haunting serenity and I watched numb as images rose and fell to the swell of the music. Time is engorged in Heck's films and small gestures seem to take on a kind of romantic importance: the tilt of a head, the slight turn of someone's back, the slow twinge of a smile. The translucent overlay of images beautifully embodies the film's opening statement:
I also watched an extract from the ballet 'Chroma' performed by Sarah Lamb and Frederico Bonelli. I think the appeal of the piece, to me anyway, is its awkwardness. It presents a paradox because it is graceful and poignant but at the same time the dancer's movements are so angular, their limbs so unflatteringly contorted and out-stretched, devoid of pretense, that the dance is uncomfortable to watch. But this is more to its power. I sometimes become preoccupied with the idea that my drawings should be correct and finished, polished, technically faultless as this will transpire as beauty and worth. Now, however, I'm interested in that awkwardness, exposing the wrestle within the composition, the difficulty in its creation. I think more so than any other performance I've seen, this extract highlights the toil and strain the dancer's bodies endure to create something of substance. More and more I'm coming to regard traditional conceptions of 'beauty' as problematic.
I haven't written in a while. I'm still working, still drawing, but with nowhere near the kind of momentum I need. I've almost finished a drawing and I've started a new one but for a multitude of reasons I became despondent; paralyzed by unhelpful thoughts, anxiety mostly. It was strange really, as if I were stuck under a bell jar, something was making my muscles heavy and my whole body ached. I imagined myself waking up the same way Mathieu Amalric does in 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly': stagnant, contained and barely able to move save one eye that peers up and closes when the magnitude of his crippling situation becomes apparent. Its not the first time its happened but it never ceases to scare me. For the life of me I just. couldn't. get. up. Its a phenomenon Julia Kristeva outlines far more succinctly than I could ever hope to in the opening pages of 'Black Sun':
Stephen Fry explains depression slightly differently, suggesting that although external phenomena can exasperate itsaffectthey aren't nnecessarily its cause. He states: "To me, mood is the equivalent of weather. Weather is real. That's the important thing to remember about weather. It is absolutely real. When it rains, it rains. It is wet. You get wet. There's no question about it. Its also true about weather that you can't control it. You can't say "if I wish hard enough, it won't rain". But its equally true that if the weather's bad, one day it will get better and what I had to learn was to treat my moods like the weather. On the one hand denying that its there saying "I'm not really depressed, why should I be depressed? I've got enough money, I've got a job, people like me, there's no reason to be depressed", that's the stupidest thing- there's no reason to have asthma or measles, you know you've got it. It's there. Its not about reason. You don't get depressed because bad things happen to you... [it] happens like weather to you inside you. It's not enough to talk yourself out of it... its a mood disorder, akin to weather." Simply, you just have to ride it out. Listen to your body, your instinct and sit in the pain of it. Its something that psychiatrists call 'containing'. Its painful and its difficult and it hurts but equally, itpasses and that's the important thing to remember. Luckily it seems to be lifting.
