Post-Contingent Coherence (2016)
Single channel video, 5' 51”
This video is about anosognosia. Patients suffering from this pathology fill mental spaces with imprecise information to supply the precise information they lack. An interesting aspect of anosognosia is to understand that, in some way, "we use details and reasoning to cope with the stress of everyday life" (Ramachandran, 2012, page 211). In fact, anyone can be considered anosognostic at some level, since, in specific situations, we deny part of reality in order to face it. Post-Contingent Coherence is based on this neural pathology. The audiovisual piece shows a pianist playing Frédéric Chopin's 'Nocturne Op. 55, No. 1 in F Minor'. To represent anosognosia, perception changes according to the perspective of the camera. The first-person shots reveal that the pianist believes she is playing with both hands; an individual reality different from the third-person shots, which allow the viewer to discover her paralysis. The transparent piano rhetorically expresses what Thomas Metzinger has called the "transparent model": the way we experience reality without recognizing what processes are involved in its formation.
