PUBLIC TALK: Nachtraglichkeit: an aesthetics of trauma

Pierre Janet coined the classic formulation of trauma when he argued that in the normal course of events, experiences are processed through cognitive schemes that enable them to be recognised and assimilated to narrative. Memory is thereby constituted as an experience which is transformed into a representation. Trauma, however, resists such processing. Trauma, argued Janet, is not so much remembered as subject to unconscious and uncontrolled repetition. If trauma is so opposed to representation let alone narrative, then serious questions are raised for aesthetics and experimental art. How can we aesthetically express the experience of trauma when what characterises that experience is its anti-representational nature? This lecture will investigate some of these issues in relation to a series of interactive multi-media works undertaken by Dennis Del Favero between 1999 and 2004.

Dennis Del Favero is a Sydney based artist. He is Co-director of the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research at the University of New South Wales. His DVD-Rom installation 'Deep Sleep' is part of the exhibition 'CRASH (and other worldly pleasures)' at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery from 12 February to 29 March 2006. 'Deep Sleep' is based on the events surrounding the notorious Chelmsford psychiatric hospital in Sydney during the 1970s.