Monday, October 09, 2006
Schizophrenia and the Tate Slides
Schizophrenia, it seems, has suffered a bad case of semantic bloat. Scientists have decided that the term has expanded to cover so many symptoms that it is now largely meaningless and its use is interfering with the treatment of mental illness. Meanwhile, over at Tate Modern, huge slides have been installed in the Turbine Hall. A Tate curator says, yes, they are fun, but also they are art because they are beautiful. The artist responsible, Carsten Holler, says they can help mental health problems, being particularly useful in relieving stress. Semantic bloat is becoming convergent and circular. Art can be fun, therefore it can be a fairground ride and can also help with mental health problems which, it now seems, have become all but indefinable, like art. It's a small world conceptually, but you wouldn't want to paint it.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Semantic bloat - for example the term dyslexia, so beloved in the late 80s and 90s to cover even an off day at school or disagreement with the teacher.
ReplyDeleteAttention deficit disorder. Postmodernism. Stress. Not fit for purpose. Makeover. Self-esteem. Historicism. Freedom.
ReplyDeleteWe know these words and the things they are attached to when we hear them and the meaningless way they are used, but what's going wrong with us as a people and as a civilisation? Why is it happening and where does it originate?
ReplyDeleteAnd why would anybody want to lift a finger to preserve 'our way of life', pace Blair and Bush et al.?
I blame it all on high levels of cortisol.
ReplyDelete