insanity

Last word is a literary audio walk through the forest in Amsterdam. During the walk you listen to four voices that lead you to a place where the story - a bitter sweet family history about parting, punishment, insanity, and acknowledgement - comes to a surprising end. The walker chooses his or her own direction at a crossing-point which also determines the perspective of the story: Jason, little Kees, Helga or Carlotta. What connects these four people? Do they meet each other at the end of the story at the agreed place. 

The aim of this piece was to work with a group of people from Ashworth a high Security Mental Hospital to produce an interactive programme embodying the life experience of those involved. This is manifested in the form of an anonymous computer personality made up of the collective experience of the group. Ashworth Hospital is located in the north of England near Liverpool and is home and prison to people who are a danger to themselves or to people outside the hospital.The group of patients I worked with ranged from serial killers to rapists, potential suicides and casualties of the excesses of society. The staff I am worked with included psychiatric nurses of twenty years experience and orderlies.This artwork is about the recording of the life experiences of the client group that are a mirror to ourselves ("normal society") and our amnesia when confronted with the excesses of our society. This forgetting is a dark shadow cast by plenty, a nightmare for some that constructs misinformation and fear about insanity, violence and victims.

(Source: Project description)