design/ concept of specification list
To get to the source of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis the visitors of the exhibition had to open old doors, they can experiment on their apperception by lying “on the couch”: Is this experience rather hallucination than dream?
What fascinates the moviegoer about the fictive world of images on the screen? How do directors tell stories about repression or breaking taboos?
In addition: Is the film experience more analogous to intoxication or to the condition of dreaming?
The exhibition “Movies on the Mind. Psychology and Film Since Sigmund Freud" was devoting itself to the complex relationship between psychology and film, the cinematic portrayals of psychic phenomena and the deeper connections between film and psychology. Both use associations. Both analyze and construct identities. It is also true for both that it is not the rational, but rather the unconscious, desires and drives that are the motivating factors behind many histories.
The exhibition offered its visitors the opportunity to literally put themselves on “the couch,” to experiment with their own perceptions, to catch on to the tricks of directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, G. W. Pabst and Woody Allen, and to observe their works in another light. All of this will be connected with the latest findings from film historical, psychological and neurological research.
further stations of the exhibition:
- Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles/ 2007
- Österreichische Filmgalerie, Krems/ 2008
- Hong Kong Film Archive/ 2008
