My husband and I spent a lovely afternoon at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and especially enjoyed the video installation, In Two Minds—Past Version. We entered the large dark room that held a video screen at each end and watched as the young man on the screen to our left and the older man on the screen to our right had a lively, contentious debate about art. We were intrigued but a bit confused having walked into the middle of their conversation. Then I noticed the placard that explained:
In 1978 Atherton made a work consisting of a dialogue between two recordings of himself for an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London. The openness of the work’s Q&A format allowed him to “reenter” the conversation almost thirty years later and respond to questions posed by his twenty-seven year old self…
We continued to watch, and then it dawned on me that it was much like witnessing a hypnotherapy session. A few techniques came to mind. Sometimes I will have a client imagine that he or she is mediating a conversation with the various aspects of him or herself that are in conflict. Another approach I might take is to have a client imagine that he or she is in conversation with an older, wiser future self—one who has surmounted the obstacles faced. Sometimes I alternatively will have a client imagine that he or she is speaking with a younger wounded past self, which gives the client—the wise adult—the opportunity to reframe the child’s experience and give assurance that things are going to be okay.
Atherton’s video installation is marvelous, especially thinking about it in this context. It demonstrates the way an artist evolves but also encourages each viewer to think about his or her own growth process and evolving perspectives.
