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WHISPERING VOID

In Joakim Eneroth’s previous photo-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 was faced with exhaustion and  it led him to volunteer in a neurological research project. During the research project, all sorts of neurological 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 of brutal accidents, 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 below).
  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 also done by the scientist David Chalmers).
The paradoxical instruction Joakim was given during the X-ray below was to try to not think about any problems...

 

BÄST LITEN hjärnröntgen.jpg

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

Behind the concealed window, his mother replied:

"I'll love you anyway".

Absent

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