Debate on VICTIMS’ SYMPTOM at the MutaMorphosis conference (celebrating 40 years of Leonardo) in Prague

In celebration of 40 years of the MIT Press journal Leonardo, founded by the scientist and artist Frank J. Malina, the conference MutaMorphosis will be held in Prague from 8-10 November 2007.

One of the topics of debate that will be showcased at MutaMorphosis is around the project Victims’ Symptom (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Culture), curated by Ana Peraica (Croatia) and commissioned by LabforCulture.org. An introduction to the Victims’ Symptom project has been launched on LabforCulture.org, featuring an in-depth curatorial statement by curator Ana Peraica, as well as a blog and a unique visual interface through which to access the project over the next months.

Victims’ Symptom (PTSD and Culture) attempts to move forward the notion of PTSD from psycho-traumatic diagnosis to a symptomatic term in media studies. The project will analyse the meaning of a victim who has survived a traumatic event, becoming both a witness and a suffering subject. Commissioned as a special initiative to mark LabforCulture’s one-year anniversary, the full project, accompanied by critical texts, documentation, commissioned artworks and reflections by the curator and a number of other theorists and artists throughout the project, will go live on LabforCulture.org in early 2008.

The Victims’ Symptom project is based on Ana Peraica's text War profiteers in art, which was a critique of the biennialisation and commodification of images of victims in response to Robert Storr’s exhibition at the Venice Biennale this year. Peraica’s text engendered discussions in the summer of 2007 on two large media culture list servs: Nettime and Yasmin.

A first discussion around the themes of Victims’ Symptom will take place at a roundtable discussion on the notion of the “extreme” at Mutamorphosis. The debate, moderated by Ana Peraica and including participation by sound artist Peter Cusack, professor Susan Elisabeth Ryan from Louisiana State University and Murat Germen from the Sabanci University in Istanbul, will be held on Friday, November 9, 2007 from 17:35 to 18:30 (GMT+1) in the debate room of the municipal library of Prague. Everyone is also invited to follow the debate and join in the discussion in the Victims’ Symptom blog at LabforCulture.org.

The participants will focus on the notion of “extreme” as a physical consequence of high levels of adrenaline, popularly named “the strongest drug”. In the context of war psychology, high adrenaline levels in the blood during pregnancy are known to produce problems in unborn babies (including extreme cases where stress is produced intentionally, such as by rape in war, for example in Bosnia). Namely, a generation of babies who were in their mothers’ uterus’ during periods of extreme conditions paradoxically feel “safe” in situations of extreme risk.

The mediated experience, becoming more and more real, will also be taken into account. How much can media representations of violence and adrenaline rising in the mediated experience produce similar symptoms? Are we already dealing with the collateral media victims of wars, even with computer games or reports that are beyond our understanding?