First Citizen (House of the Deaf Man)

HD Video, 12'30", 2013

First Citizen (House of the Deaf Man) opens in a small room, where a therapist is in consultation with a young man. Through the use of hypnosis, the young man is experiencing a ma­nipulation of his unconscious motivation. A feeling of debt is implanted in him through psycho-suggestion. First Citizen (House of the Deaf Man) proposes the idea that the indebt­edness of the citizen is not only a causality of a flawed eco­nomic system, but also the last relation that connects the citizen to a community. The only sure way to be part of any power relation is to enter the creditor/debtor relationship. Debt might hence be something that the citizen uncontiously desires - as the only means of experiencing community. First Citizen (House of the Deaf Man) paints an awry portrait of the indebted man with a little help from Goya’s painting ‘Duel with Cudgels’.

Credits

DP: Adam Jandrup

1 Assistant Camera: Lui Gram Mokrzycki

Light Assistant: Torben Brent Wenneberg

Production Sound Mixer: Mikkel Holsø

 

First Citizen: Peter Bonneman

The Therapist: Joachim Hamou

 

Thanks: Tina Helen, Copenhagen Town Hall, Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova Museum

 

The work is supported by: The Danish Arts Foundation and The 2013 Turku Biennial