Reply to comment

I have been speaking Gobstein about an article on Serendip and in looking through the site I found your thesis. Very interesting as I have just finished reading "The Yellow House" (about the time in which Van Gogh painted in Arles with Gauguin). Articles I have read indicate he may have suffered from epilepsy. I am the agent for an artist with
left temporal lobe epilepsy so naturally discussion of this nature is of interest to me.

I would like to present Mitchell for your consideration. His photography is conceptually based influenced by neuroscience. It can allude to desire, sanctuary, chronicle of memory and disassociation as in the Linear or Diaphanous collections. The Janusian collection of 14 images is not on the web site but I would be happy to send you images if you like. I liked what you wrote concerning this thought process.

Contrary to the assumption that photography is about representation, pure abstraction in which the notion that something representational must be depicted is rejected in the vast majority of work. The images themselves along with the process of image making are the subject rather than the depiction of something identifiable. Images are shot with the purest of intuition and from a perspective largely influenced by aura occurrences associated with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Auras can produce heightened abstract emotions, affecting the visual field. Perspective becomes distorted and there strangely can be a sensation of a third party presence as if there is something almost “alive” in the scene. Additionally, Déjà vu, where a situation seems familiar and in contrast, Jamais-vu where the familiar becomes alien are relative feelings that can be very strong and very personal, and on occasion blissful. Colors become language-like, as though there is a heightened sense of subtle separation where you can almost read them in tone and graduation. Aside from the altered visual experience, sound may become distorted as well. Local sounds can become blanketed as if in a film clip where actual audio has been overlaid or replaced with a soundtrack enhancing the aesthetic experience; distant sounds may become amplified as though nearby. The work is grouped in collections for aesthetic reasons but also, as the auras can be prolonged producing a set of thoughts and sensations that strongly relate to each other—an essay develops. Concepts and meanings in words that might invigorate the imagination, or perhaps for the intellect alone are explored which enhance the imagery; sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the two. While the experience with auras, is not always evident in the result, it is irrefutably connected in the process of creation.