January 19, 2007

• ok just one photo NSFW, I guess
• Oh. That one of the guy scribbling on the wall... whoa. All powerful pictures. Thanks, Koko. OOOh, the The Codex Seraphinianus!
• Wow. What painful images. I feel the need to apologise to these people. What a way to start the weekend - things can only get brighter. Nice work!
• Geez, what brilliant photos. the use of light and perspective is amazing. Truly the work of a professional. Wow. I sure would like a better description of the photos other than the "these were a part of the series" statement. Why was that lady's head through the door and does she do that every day? Many of them are truly haunting and will stay with me for a while. The use of light on slide 10 is just amazing. But the smiles on slide 2...that tells the deeper story. BTW: What's with the cats? are they crazy too? (they look crazy to me)
• Why was that lady's head through the door I like to think that's the last bit of the lady we see as she's escaping the institute in a breechlike fashion. Go Granny go!
• I wish the article were translated and/or readable. The black and white photography makes it seem more depressing than it may actually have been. The attendants and doctors all have a sort of Nurse Rachet intensity, but maybe they were just concerned or demonstrating how concerned they were for the camera. It's kind of hard to know how to react to the situations without any narrative. I do have a couple of questions that I probably wouldn't get an answer to even reading the article: Is the naked lady actually standing on the floor while on her bed, or are her knees bent where we can't see them? How did that woman get her head through the small window?
• great link.
• One flew east, one flew west, one drew cuckoo clocks in his nest.
• damnit flagpole! you spoiled my next FFP! ah well... back to scouring...
• Having worked in psych hospitals for a number of years, I need to say that, although it isn't quite as barren as these photos express...they still aren't much different if you look past the artwork on the walls and the pastel paints. great link...thanks!
• HuronBob - I only worked in one (for the retarded) for about a year in the early 60s, which is why I'm so curious about the story. The late 50s was when big scandals about patient treatment in Califoria hit the papers. There was nothing in the photos to indicate beatings and the like, but it still looked pretty grim.
• The guy in the straw was particularly depressing.
• As was the man being pulled to the wagon by the police in the first photo. I looked at him and thought, well, the sort of trite things you can guess I thought. I'm invariably compelled by gorgeous photos of tragedy such as these (Tom Waits once described his music as "beautiful songs that tell you terrible things" and this fits that description), and part of me feels the need to apologize for it. I think it's because the dominant feeling I get when I behold really good art is a profound sense of gratitude that I got to see it, gratitude that the art exists. But of course madness must exist for this art to exist. It lives and breathes because of others' illness and suffering, which obviously isn't worth the cost.
• There's a few out there who think there's a codependent marriage between art and madness, mct. I suppose it's sort of like a shovel and a hole; alone they're nothing special, but if both of them pull for the other you can hide the body.
• Few out there.
• It's the photos of surgical-style treatments that I find the most jarring, especially the person tied to the gurney with a needle about to enter his or her forehead. Frontal lobotomy?
• No offence, path, but I'm too slack to translate a 24 page article for nichts.
• 'Twasn't a hint, Wolof, but thanks for briefly considering the option.
• Indeed. Path, I can't find any 24-page article, although I have several able and charitable translators here at the moment. However, I believe I can see part of the kneeling woman's right heel, and furthermore, it looks like the head through the window only appears big because of an excess of hair; I suspect that if the head were shaved it would be clear how it fit through the aperture.
• Brilliant and disturbing post, thank you Koko.