Enormously generous of the brilliant Hotel Magazine to host, and premiere, my film made with Noah Hutton (Noah made the film, edited it, and I think conceived it. I wrote it, starred in it, and watched im work, to learn) https://partisanhotel.co.uk/Noah-Hutton-SJ-Fowler
A short film—a transatlantic cinematic collaboration produced as part of The Hub residency at Wellcome Trust—Enthusiasm draws on new techniques in analyzing internal monologues and self-consciousness used by contemporary neuroscientists. Utilising the possibilities of cinema to reveal the conflicts of inner and outer narrative, how our internal and external languages collide, the film features improvised and acted scenes alongside voiceover techniques, to juxtapose that which is said and that which is thought. The text featured below is the latter.
Misophonia, literally “hatred of sound,” is a rarely diagnosed disorder, commonly thought to be of neurological origin, in which negative emotions (anger, flight, hatred, disgust) are triggered by specific sounds. The sounds can be loud or soft. There are ex-votos, or acts of faith, all probably in intentional or symbolic order, with each scene occupying its hierarchical place, and what’s more, each subject, each human figure, rendered in a predetermined size and scale in accordance with some stray, subtle meaning. What is the meaning? That to correct ourselves we must be honest with ourselves. We must admit our desires in order to resist them. This might not seem possible at first. To admit to the harm we might want to do. Because everyone else seems so still. Of course, many are, frozen, fixed—never connected enough to gain motion or momentum. But so often, being too tired, or not methodological enough, we visitors hurry on, distracted, through the zoo. A touch of fingertips on an exposed forearm, a hand resting flat upon a back. Eyes, widely staring, invitational, being taken seriously. The underlying attraction to individuals who are brighter than us, more intelligent, but who are at the same time at a genetic disadvantage—utterly malleable through the lottery of genes. Once you’ve got them to touch you, your arm, your neck, your hair, then it tends to be chance has had its moment, and the endless search for control has found its mark. Can this kind of mechanism be as satisfying if it isn’t built on an assumption that everything is founded upon chance operation? Visions of perfect relations, spaces beyond words. A couple, you and the famous actress, neuroscientist, friend, lithograph, hologram. The last minute is her smiling, correcting the vocal fry register, and the whole abstinence movement of America. You can see, if you watch closely, the dying possibility of a deeper link.
The film being published / premiered / hosted by Hotel is the second of their very generous features on my collaborations to help share word of my selected collaborations NEMESES with Haverthorn press https://www.haverthorn.com/books/nemeses-selected-collaborations-of-sj-fowler-volume-2