"I really need to see the life that haunts me"
Honest and visceral video performance of my sister's first exhibition as a video artist shown last September at the Fringe Festival held at the Volcano Contemporary Art Centre, Swansea.
This was shown as part of an exhibition of the "Last Foundation" - a collective of artists that are based in Swansea and made up of current students and former art students from University Of Wales Trinity St Davids.
Deirdre and her fiancé Liam, used film, illustration and poetry to interpret performance art. Mental health was chosen to increase awareness about psychosis to the public as it's regularly portrayed as dangerous in films and media. The films dark tone was a attempt to represent the suffering of a psychotic experience - an experience which usually results in isolation and mental torture.
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A Mental Health Performance
Words, Music & Acting by Deirdre Sagatis.
Filming & Editing by Liam Evans.
"I'm a singer, songwriter and since I was a teenager I have suffered from mental health issues, which still affects me to this day. I have anxiety, depression and I have experienced psychosis when I was going through a stressful time back in 2012.
I have produced a film about "psychosis" and I have used substantial research and my own personal experiences to interpret someone who is going through a psychotic experience.
The film is set in a dark, frantic tone, giving a sense of isolation and confusion. The main character represents psychosis itself and the static voice is the inner anguish of the mind. I also produce the music for the film, it has an experimental and psycohdelic atmosphere which blends well with the visually warped reality.
The person who is going through the psychotic episode experiences delusions, hallucinations, strange beliefs and the feeling of losing touch with reality. I have tried to display this emotionally and physically using subliminal gestures. The film as a whole can come across intense, but I have tried to keep away from a horror-type-film feel, because of the copious mis-interpretations of psychosis in the film industry.
The false perceptions within the media describes a psychotic experience as 'dangerous' which is very misleading to the general public. Anyone can experience psychosis, which people find difficulties in getting help, as they are afraid of being scrutinised and alienated because of the lack of education in mental health disorders.
Psychosis is an experience hat can lead to a underlying mental health illness such as Schizophrenia. If treated correctly by a clinical mental health outlet, it can be a gift rather than a burden. People who are going through these disturbing and stressful conditions, need vital support from their family and friends. It is so important for their steps to recovery and their mental health and well being."
In the video, the following poem written by Deirdre (which is also the title of the video) can be heard spoken with a highly distorted voice effect:
"Unknown
I really need to see the life that haunts me, that tears me apart from everyone else.
I’m surrounded by inner thoughts they run around my head like a ghost train.
Transparent motion working my mind, I only sees things through lies.
Money, sex, corruption is what I live for.
Feeding off fresh bate to satisfy my needs.
Undying is my soul, blackened by the world, broken by betrayal.
I’m only living for today, the now, the present.
The future is a fog, no lights to see you through.
The past is just a dusty old book, never to be read, never to be remembered.
The world is not what it seems, we all take, pour pain and play in to the devil’s game.
I once was happy and believed in hope and love, but you took away everything.
Justice is what I need to break away the rubber and wash away my wounds. I’m locked in the darkness screaming at the walls, scratching at the forgotten face I grew to hate.
I’ll escape and destroy the demons that hurt me, I will let the abyss take me and I will feel no pain. For the one thing I loved was the white padded cell staring at me, my starving mind of running poison, smoke filled fantasies, colours so vivid it would burn my eyes.
I forget, life wasn’t obsessive and corrupt when I met you. I can remember another love, my family, my friends. I was kind, and full of joy, no insanity infecting me like a disease. Now, I’m riddled with despair, no one to save me from my destructive mind.
The voices that taunt me, now comfort me, the pain that emotionally numbs me, brings a familiar face that I can turn to. I lye naked and cold in the darkness, but there is a light that I see, I want to reach out but I can’t move. I feel peace surround me and then It’s gone, snatched from my existence. I’m back in the darkness, so alone, so detached from the world.
I really need to see the life that haunts me, that tears me apart from everyone else.
By DD
Age 19-32 I wrote the first paragraph when I was 19 and completed the poem at age 32. "