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Your Special Island
From outer space to the gutter, Your Special Island (YSI) is a three-part video project concerning consciousness and the mental states of shame and fear. An additional theme in the project is the quest of neuroscience to locate and understand these states, or affects, through screen-based imaging. The title is taken from the 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical film, South Pacific. Set against the backdrop of World War II, South Pacific's "your special island" is a lyric in the song "Bali Ha'i" that beckons the listener to a place of exoticized pleasure, a measure to combat dissociation and dis-connection.
full video here
component parts YSI (red), YSI (yellow),
The title points to the island of any state of being, manifested in the island-like nature of the screen. YSI (yellow, central) concerns uncertainties of mind and matter, fear related phenomena such as fear of emptiness: stuffing the space between celestial bodies in the expanding universe with junk; fear of dying; fear response of violence including fantasy weapons fashioned from artifacts of global conflict. YSI (red, on the left) concerns desire and longing in relation to inner and outer voices, and virtual synapse imaging. YSI (blue, right) focuses on the enigma of shame and fear through implied violence in relation to screen-based experience, and fMRI imaging looking around for the center of empathy.
The three works in YSI, sharing queered conceptual, thematic, and visual elements, may be seen together or individually.
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