The MAC is to to be the first venue for Every Thought There Ever Was, a major new touring exhibition by artist Lindsay Seers. Through digital animation, special effects, drawing and sound design, Every Thought There Ever Was explores the extraordinary brain functioning that occurs in the condition of schizophrenia. Incorporating industrial robotics in conjunction with a three-screen video projection, the work is shaped by philosophical ideas and scientific research concerned with the phenomenon of consciousness.
The work draws on an experimental treatment known as Avatar Therapy, in which those living with schizophrenia can speak to their persecutors in a digital world. Guided by first person accounts and a collaborative drawing exchange, Seers’ work has been shaped by conversations with scientific partners including Anil Seth at The Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and Chris Frith, Emeritus and Professor of Neuropsychology, UCL to explore the current studies and thinking on the condition.
Pursuing her on-going fascination with how an individual’s biography embodies history, Seers takes Victorian surgeon James Miranda Barry as her narrator. Barry transcends time through a connection with the offspring she gave life to, by performing a ground-breaking emergency Caesarean section operation. Barry’s future life sees her manifest as an Avatar with an ability to cure.
Hugh Mulholland, Senior Curator at the MAC says: “This major new work is the result of extensive research with leading practitioners who are working to develop new treatments for and understanding of schizophrenia. Into this research, Lindsay weaves the experiences of those living with the condition and presents us with a powerful, compelling and complex work”.
The exhibition will premiere at the MAC, Belfast from May 4th to July 29th, 2018. Following this it will tour to Focal Point Gallery, Southend-On-Sea, from September 8th to December 23rd, 2018. In 2019 it will tour to Hospitalfield and in 2020 to John Hansard Gallery.
