Re: [-empyre-] Bare Life, Ghost Detainees, Exclusion and Performance

["G.H. Hovagimyan" <ghh@thing.net>]

Hi Susana,
To answer to your questions. Perhaps I should have said Schizotypal  
personality disorder to describe the character. Here's the definition  
from wikipedia;

"Schizotypal personality disorder, or simply schizotypal disorder, is  
a personality disorder that is characterized by a need for social  
isolation, odd behaviour and thinking, and often unconventional  
beliefs such as being convinced of having extra sensory abilities.  
Some people believe that schizotypal personality disorder is a mild  
form of schizophrenia."There is a high rate of comorbidity with other  
personality disorders. McGlashan et al. (2000) stated that this may  
be due to overlapping criteria with other personality disorders, such  
as avoidant personality disorder and paranoid personality disorder[1]."
-from wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Schizotypal_personality_disorder>

In America this is the common understanding of borderline schizo.  
There is also a sort of underlying archetype which I can loosely  
define. It is the loner who may also be an assassin, such as Theodore  
Bikel in the movie Taxi Driver. There is also Ted Kozinski the Una- 
bomber, and any number of people who don't engage in the normal  
political society. These people believe they have been abducted by  
aliens or aliens are controlling their mind. They hear voices  
commanding them to kill such as the 44 Caliber Killer. In the 1970's  
in Soho, New York there was a homeless man who used to walk around  
and shout about the news reports. I'm sure that everyone has  
encountered this type of street person in their own country. The  
person speaks the truth but it is mixed up with his own mental disease.
I was on a bus in Paris a couple of years ago and a man started to  
rant to the people on the bus about Chirac and Sacrosi. Everyone was  
listening and the man was expressing what the society felt.

On Jul 17, 2006, at 5:38 AM, Susana Mendes Silva wrote:

> Hi G.H.,
>
> I am quite curious about the way that you built your character for  
> this specific performance project.
> Why did you choose a "borderline schizoid personality type"?
>
>
> > For our next collaborative piece we did a performance work called,  
> > Rant/ Rant Back/ Back Rant;
> > “Peter Sinclair created a special interface to sample voice input,  
> > manipulate it and send it back into the general audio mix in real  
> > time. GH projects the ramblings of a borderline schizoid  
> > personality type who can't tell the difference between media news  
> > information, gossip and paranoid rumors. The piece is a techno  
> > driven word or poetry jam that resembles the ranting of a  
> > delusional street person. GH prepared the content by clipping news  
> > articles and posting them on a web in a blog called rantblog PTP  
> > (power to the people).”
> > http://nujus.net/gh_04/gallery9.html