Interview Patricia Pisters about EYE film lecture for EYE's Shell Shock program. 

Te gast bij Aflevering 84 van de podcast Onder Mediadoctoren van Linda Duits en Vincent Crone. Live uitzeding op 4 maart 2019. Hier de link naar de podcast.

Stedelijk Statements: Patricia Pisters – Worlding the Brain is the fourth edition of Stedelijk Statements, a program series in which a scholar, artist, critic, or cultural entrepreneur composes an evening at the museum. The organizer of the program is given the floor to share his or her views on visual art and design. New research and both artistic and academic projects will be presented during an evening program consisting of lectures, debates, performances, and film screenings. In this edition, Professor of Film Patricia Pisters (Media Studies, University of Amsterdam) shows how art translates subjective experiences that take place in our brain.

STATEMENT: WORLDING THE BRAIN

This evening I want to take visitors of the Stedelijk Museum on a ‘journey through the brain’ where neuroscientist, psychiatrists, artists, patients and philosophers are equal partners in dialogue. Objective knowledge about synapsis and brain functions is important, but does not give us insights into the subjective experiences of mental processes, which is the domain of the arts and humanities. Objective and subjective disciplinary fields about the brain could act more as ‘trusted strangers’ and create a more synergetic and integral understanding of the brain. This Stedelijk Statement is connected to a conference at the University of Amsterdam entitled Worlding the Brain: Affect, Care, Engagement where we propose to take the brain out of the scientific lab and put it back into the chaotic rich complexity of the world by exchanging findings, observations and thoughts about the emotions and care for our synaptic processes and mental (dis)orders. - Patricia Pisters 

With work and contributions by Guillaume Dumas, RAAAF (Eric and Ronald Rietveld), Alva Noe, Zoe Beloff, Jason Tougaw, The Art of Neuroscience, Lancel & Maat, Maartje Nevejan & Monobanda, Esther van Fenema & Floor Braam & the Dutch National Ballet. See website of Stedelijk Musuem Amsterdam for more information. Download the program of the evening here. And the wall texts of the three istallations here. Introduction by Patricia Pisters can be read here.  A report by Nim Goede in Metropolis M gives a participant impression. Below a visual impression of the evening (3 November 2017) Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2017. Foto: Tomek Dersu Aaron. Clothes Patricia Pisters by Mattijs van Bergen, kimono suit from his Photo-to-Fashion series. See for the registration of this Stedelijk Statement: Worlding the Brain here. See also under Pictures.

Grote Denkers: Marguerite Duras from De Balie on Vimeo. This event took place 7 September 2017 in Amsterdam. In Duthc. Organisatie en presentatie: Mirthe Frese en Merlijn Geurts. Muziek: Manuel Wouthuysen en Kika Sprangen. Met Marte Kaan (over Duras en Lacan), Patricia Pisters (over Hiroshima Mon Amour, India Song, Le Camion en Les Yeux Bleu Cheveux Noirs) en Julie Cafmeyer (n.a.v. De Minnaar).

This project is part of the Geomediations Collective initiative. In each of the seven found footage films in this series of Metallurgy, Media, Minds I follow one of the seven ancient metals that were known of an d used in alchemy. This project departed from the idea put forward by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus that “every matter consists of metal” or, metal is in everything.  In a new materialist perspective, the materiality of matte also implies its metaphoric and immaterial properties, which directly relate back to alchemy.  I became interested in the idea of filmmakers as metallurgists that shape, bend, weld and transform our historical and collective consciousness. As an experiment I started out by looking at gold in both its material properties and its significance in human history. The first film in this series (when I was honing my editing skills, as I still am), was Following the Gold. Obviously many more metals could be followed, especially in the context of our modern media world where every machine, every screen, every gadget is full of (rare) earth metals. But the idea of returning to the old alchemical planets gave the project a clear scope.

Mercury is heavy, dark and full of secrets, hiding many faces. Where tin is a very friendly and light metal, that seems to sympathize with humanity, absorbing its sorrows and pains, wanting to become human from the outside, mercury’s spirit penetrates more deeply into the body and soul of everything it touches, operating as the great transformer. It is for this reason that mercury plays such an important role in alchemy, a dimension that I have tried to honor in this compilation. Mercury can designate (Egyptian) Toth, (Greek) Hermes or (Roman) Mercury, the messenger of the ancient mythological Gods; it is also the name of the planet closest to the sun (and hence considered as messenger of the sun); and it is the name of the silvery liquid metal mercury (Hg), also known as quicksilver. Mercury is obtained from an orange rock cinnabar, which turns into an orange-red powder when grounded and which releases liquid mercury when heated. What is very special is that when mercury is synthesized again with sulpher, an artificial red powder, called vermillion, re-appears. Natural cinnabar and artificial vermillion have been known since ancient times for their use as pigment, mercury has been and still is used as a “magnet for gold” in gold mining. However, mercury is very poisonous; it attacks the nervous system (and many other bodily functions) directly, and makes you go insane.