WHISPERING VOID
In Joakim Eneroth’s previous art project Short Stories
of the Transparent Mind, he investigated the nature of
mind from an Eastern philosophical point of view. As
Bill Viola has put it: ”Joakim Eneroth’s work is the vivid
record of a personal journey to uncover the fundamental
emptiness that lies beyond and beneath our
day-to-day experience of the world…The result is a
profound meditation on impermanence and emptiness
in contemporary life, and the fullness that emerges
within us when our inner mirror is finally polished and
the clutter long blocking our vision is cleansed.”
In two new projects, Joakim explores the same
theme but from a Western psychological perspective
combined with contemporary neuroscience. Relying
only on his own experience and not theory, he utilizes
methods such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization
and Reprocessing), ACT (Acceptance and Commitment
Therapy), CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy),
and psychodynamic therapy. His aim is to reveal more
and more of the subconscious layer of experience.
This exploration has led Joakim to develop new techniques
and forms such as three-dimensional photographs,
levitating sculptures, colour shifting installations
and laser images. All of them manifest the notions and
perceptions of the fluctuating mind.
Joakim grew up with a mother who was both a
psychotherapist and a psychoanalyst. He recalls childhood
memories of the hundreds of cassette recordings
in his mother’s working room, filled with the stories
of the patients who visited their home. He remembers
the fascination and fear that was triggered every time
he saw the book Wolf Man by Sigmund Freud on the
bookshelf. Knowing the book was about a patient,
Joakim had many images in his mind about what a
wolf man could be, and he gazed with an investigating
look at all the patients who entered through the door.
So this project has, in many senses, been a journey
back to his childhood. In this new work, you may
hear the echo of his previous project, but now from
a different angle. The questions revolve around how
to distinguish the mental projections of the mind from
reality itself.
Some years ago, Joakim volunteered in a neurological research project. During the research project, all sorts of neurological and psychological tests were performed on his
mind and body. The tests ranged from simple measurements
of cognitive ability to being asked to look at horrifying
photos from secret American police files, along
with shocking sounds, while measuring EOG (Electrooculography).
This led into a collaboration with the Department of
Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet.
During the brain X-ray session (pictured above)
Joakim’s personal investigation was about the relationship
between the open background of awareness
and the specific content of the mind. How they coexist
and at the same time merge in and out of each other
(related work is done by the scientist David Chalmers).
The paradoxical instruction Joakim was given during the
X-ray was to try not to think about any problems
Tracing The Traceless 1
Tracing The Traceless 2
Tracing The Traceless 3
Tracing The Traceless 4
Self Judgement
Subjective Veil 1
Subjective Veil 2
Subjective Veil 3
Point of Intersection
Undefined Group Dependence 1
Dualistic Notion 1
Dualistic Notion 2
Dualistic Notion 3
Dualistic Notion 4
Self-judgment
Compact Nature Experience
7 midday skies
3 ocean views
4 sights of magnolia
compact and condensed
Urban Dusk Experience
3 bike riders
5 joggers
and the sight of 2 street cleaners
compact and condensed
The Sofa
507 hours of watching TV
83 brown sugar cookies
3 times making love on it
and one decision to break up
compact and condensed
Sustained Echo
Absent
Behind the concealed window, his mother replied:
"I'll love you anyway".
Absent 2
In Whispering Void, artist Joakim Eneroth explores the nature of the mind from a Western psychological perspective combined with contemporary neuroscience. It is a continued examination of the theme, which was investigated in his previous art project Short Stories of the Transparent Mind from
an Eastern philosophical point of view.
In Whispering Void, Eneroth reveals the deeper subconscious layers of experience, the dance of notions and perceptions in the fluctuating mind.
The questions often revolve around how to distinguish the mental projections of the mind from reality itself.
Read a more full description of this work, along with the X-ray images of the artists brain, at the beginning of this page