Obsessional neurosis
A personal project about obsessional neurosis, or ‘obsessionality’, and the many ways this is prevalent in a culture that encourages perfectionism, control and rationality.
Inspiration
What does it look like to be 'an obsessional’ (someone with an obsessional structure)?
The obsessional can think well (they might be very logical and rational), but they cannot feel anything. Information becomes a wall to keep back intense feelings like hatred. This displaced, murderous hatred can manifest in symptoms like in hyper-vigilance or obsessive-compulsive rituals.
In relation to other people, obsessionals are troubled by the aliveness and spontaneity of others - they want to kill them off. Obsessionals might experience disgust: of food for instance, if a partner’s appetite is intolerable (a defense against sexuality, as their appetite for food might represent the Other’s intolerable sexual appetite). This maybe manifests around a fear of germs; in keeping a hygienic kitchen; a secret war waged around ritualised behaviours around food preparation.
In relation to their desire and sense of agency, "The obsessive's internal conflict is so all-engrossing that it leaves little vitality for other activities—which is why the obsessive feels dead so much of the time." (Bruce Fink). The obsessional experiences extreme ambivalence around the desire to be alive versus being drawn to the deadening inertia of homeostasis (where you don’t have to feel anything or have any agency - life is suspended).
"The law exists all too evidently in obsession, weighing the subject down and oppressing him or her.” As such, the obsessional feels a huge amount of guilt in their life, and often wants to be told exactly what to do.
Method
I decided to use two conflicting modes of image-making in my practice to demonstrate the tension between the spontaneous, desirous, fluid and alive and on the other hand the obsessional’s compulsion to deaden and close off, flatten and control.
To represent desirous, spontaneous forces, I created expressive marks with black ink and a sponge that were scanned and manipulated in Photoshop. I didn’t edit these expressive marks, even if they felt slightly messy.
I then added the figure nailing wooden boards to block this out, working digitally in a more precise and controlled way, with a lack of colour.