I STILL HAVE AN OTHER-ACHE
 
Sound installation

A four channel thematized vocal composition build by layers upon layers of orchestrated melodies and lyrics,
surrounding potentially colliding swings.

Material: speaker system and computer with external sound card, wooden swings, chains
Sound format: 4 channels, 2 parallel stereo tracks
Duration: 5 min
(including silence) loop
Composition, lyrics, song and recordings made by Emma-Lina Ericson
Audio mastering made by A&O Recording Studios
Year: 2013

The piece was shown for the first time during the solo exhibition "Jag har fortfarande ont i min älskade" at Candyland in Stockholm, 2013
I Still Have an Other-Ache - The Bereft was shown at "SENSE OF LOSS - en bråddjup utställning om sorg" at Studio 44, in Stockholm 2014 and during the art-festival Survival Kit Umeå, Umeå 2014
The version with two swing, called Face to Face was also part of Living Archive Stockholm Edition: Dada Polis curated by Red Min(e)d at c.off, Stockhom 2014

Excerpt from I still have an Other-ache, stereo version


ABOUT
In the sound installation “I Still Have an Other-ache” it’s the kindred’s voices that one hears: thoughts occupying families and friends. Based on peoples testimonies and stories found on blogs, forums and in conversations I've composed an evocative musical orchestration; a lyrical collage of quotations, reflections and re-emerging questions circulating the mind of people struck by a particular, sever and complex loss.

As the title suggests the piece like to draw attention to a particular form of compassion. In Roland Barthes book A Lover’s Discourse there is a chapter with the heading I Have an Other-Ache where Barthes writes about the "healthy" civilized and artistic form of compassion: "So I shall suffer with the other, but without pressure, without losing myself."


I Still Have an Other-Ache - The Bereft
Installation view at "SENSE OF LOSS - en bråddjup utställning om sorg", Studio 44, 2014 Photo: Bea Tigerhjälm


BACKGROUND
What happens to us when someone we love is unhappy or doesn’t have the strength to live anymore?
How are children, siblings, parents and friends affected when a loved one has a psychological accident and disappears, instead of staying with those left behind?

It is not an easy topic to talk about. Should we even talk about it? Some people say talking about it just endanger others following in the same footstep. I always believed silence is a bigger threat.
Every year 10 000 to 15 000 people in Sweden are struck by difficult and complex grief because a person dear to them commits suicide. These people often struggle with more than just complex grief - researchers have finally found evidence showing that in the long run many of these people risk developing criminal behaviour, physical and mental illness. This is old knowledge but maybe we can look forward to a better, more holistic way of approaching and treating depression and suicidal behaviour thanks to it.

I grew up with a mother who struggled with periods of depression, self-inflicting behaviours and suicide attempts from early adolescent. Naturally this affected people around her. I suspected from an early age she were to die in a certain way. I developed a highly over-responsibly kind of worry, a sixth sense for her and other peoples state of mind, anxiety, a growing sense of insufficiency, powerlessness and insight that wholehearted-ness is the most important thing in life. 2005 she once again tried to leave, and this time she went. I like to think that my family and me prolonged her life, that we helped her fill it with value and love. Still I carry an undefined kind of unease. I host traces of an excruciating betrayal. I find it crucial to dissolve anxiety, shame, guilt and fear; I practice my resistance every day.

How can we talk about pain and depression, suicide and worry for a loved one? Are these topics only to be ventilated behind closed doors of therapists and isolated families? What can we learn about our selves and our society through knowledge gained through these kinds of experiences?

The art piece I still have an Other-ache is developed to give the overall matter; peoples love, pain and knowledge emerged from these mental battles and social relations; within the own self and between fellow man, an open, common and public space for introspection, reflection and shared discussions.


Installation view at SENSE OF LOSS - en bråddjup utställning om sorg, Studio 44, 2014 Photo: James Foote
I Still Have an Other-Ache - Face to Face
Installation view, Living Archive StockHolm Edition: Dada Polis, c.off/ccap


INSTALLATION CONCEPT
In my art I include the viewer or visitor, as I prefer to call they who encounter my installations. I do this early on in the process. I want to include the body, its senses and skill to comprehend things the mind avoids. Many times I think about it as if I am building a stage or a scene for the visitor. Simply by entering the visitor thereby also becomes a performer.

The pace of “I Still Have an Other-ache” correlates with the pace of a swaying swing or waves approaching the shore.

I find similarities between how swings places bodies in a levitated, pending position and how a suicide raises questions without answers. I believe the body can place and replace the mind; the mind has power to seduce, reduce and re-store the body.
A swing is easily associated with children, childhood, innocence, a sense of freedom and play. An empty swing can attract, it can also suggest absence: absence of childhood, innocence, a sense of freedom and play.

With facing, potentially colliding swings the piece want to engage the visitor in a playful possibility to sit, place a thought of the child and the visitors ears at the sound installations centre point. Our actions and move about affect others; we are always connected, also if The Other is absent. Your comprehension shifts with your position. You can bump in to a stranger and find ways to be and move side by side and together, initiate intimate conversations or silently chare a moment.

The number of swings in the installation differs depending on where it is shown. To bring the affect suicide have on next of kin to the fore - I develop the physical appearance of I still have an Other-ache to reflect statistics from the region where it is shown.
So far two different versions has been shown; "The Bereft" and "Face to Face"
The Bereft includes 13 swings and gives an estimated picture and physical experience of how many peoples life are severely affected by every single suicide.
Face to Face include two swings and focuses on facing the loss.

Detail of swing
Photo: Bea Tigerhjälm

During "SENSE OF LOSS - en bråddjup utställning om sorg" at Studio 44, 2014. Photo: Bea Tigerhjälm
During "SENSE OF LOSS - en bråddjup utställning om sorg" at Studio 44, 2014
Photo: Bea Tigerhjälm

View from the street during Survival Kit Festival in Umeå, 2014
Photo: Fanny Carinasdotter
During "Living Archive StockHolm Edition: Dada Polis" at c.off/ccap, 2014
Photo: Elin Magnusson

VOCAL COMPOSITION CONCEPT
The sound picture; the voice composition consisting of layers upon layers of one single singers voice multiplied, initially emerges from my relation with my own diversity or manifold and at some periods disunity within. I find a humours and soothing liberation with the intellectual experiment that a person, a psych contains "a society of diverse inhabitants". One is not only one; one is several. You listen to and manifest your various and sometimes conflicting inhabitant's thoughts (voices), affects, reactions and actions differently depending on who your inhabitants are, what they have learned to draw on, and how You as the performer conduct them/your self(s).

I’ve use this hypothesis to investigate bigger scenarios: I apply it on conflict-ridden interpersonal phenomena in our society; I forcibly personalize opposite ideas by squeezing them together, breaking them apart and enrolling them, placing them inside and letting them play different parts within one and the same human psych.
It’s a game of scales and space. It’s a search for new knowledge. It’s a manifested need to seek understanding, acceptance, and a propitious approach to divisiveness and chaos.

The challenge is to find ways where the manifold, without loosing its different subject’s respective personality or vitality, together can form a parallel and harmonized coexistence; a shared external body. I find a useful formula in how music is organised. Orchestration, especially polyphonic compositions I think succeed.

In my vocal sound pieces the musical composition play the part of the united body. The body consist of its inhabitants; different characters that speak (sing) there diverted minds. I look for a musical form, pace and colour that correlates to the overall theme. I try to find rhythm, dynamic and melody to mirror each character.

By shooting a kaleidoscopic mass of parallel information on the visitor she has to choose how to listen. The act of subjectively understanding is acutely highlighted. What you draw on differs. You listen, read and rewrite the world around you. Your experience differs from others. I want to encourage listening, exchange of experiences and re-listening, to your own inner voices and to your fellow human being.

Installation view at Candyland, 2013
Photo: Elin Gunnarsson



Installation view at Survival Kit Festival Umeå, 2014
Photo: Fanny Carinasdotter

During "SENSE OF LOSS - en bråddjup utställning om sorg"
at Studio 44, 2014

LYRICS
The lyrics in I still have an Other-ache is based on conversations and written testimonies by relatives and close friends to people whom prematurely ended their lives.

On pages and forums like sjalvmordsupplysningen.se, anhoriga.ifokus.se, vsmis.dinstudio.se, alexandralundsten.blogspot.se, trosteboken.blogg.se, flashback.org/t395005, spes.se you find "survivors"; next of kin's and friends who lost a dear one in suicide sharing experiences, discussing and supporting each other in how to cope with loss and deal with life.
I've used excerpts and stories from these sites in "I still have an Other-ache"

The final manuscript is a collage; a web of several survivors’ diverse experiences, created through deconstruction and inversion, anonymization and orchestral reconstruction.

Each musical part (Voice 1 – 5) contains elements of stories, references and quotes from different senders.
Through an intricate musical composition, shattered voices and tales of desolation fuses into a polyphonic, harmonized and consolidated collective force.

Candyland, 2013
Photo: Elin Gunnarsson



MANUSCRIPT

Voice 1

Six voices
Three different pitch forming a chord

Voice 2

Three voices
Same pitch

Voice 3

Three voices
Same pitch

Voice 4

Two voices
Different pitch

Voice 5

Three voices
Two different pitch


Love, your final cry of pain; the action
– blow my spark of life in to abstraction. This



The

 

 

legacy…

 

 

 

 

 

 

legacy of you easily cut back reduce you to a black monograph: A thick book of obnoxious death
excruciating pain and theft Undisputable love
and devotion turn your lethal resignation to contagious poison

I can’t accept that
you prefer nothingness to me
Do life mean less
than nothing?

My love indulge you the liberty from pain
But your way of finding it is driving me insane
Can I elude comprehend your self-centred pain
as proof life is just inhumane?
Can I elude comprehend my poor influence as proof of my insignificance?
How can you leave me this legacy

I know something is wrong
years before the message comes

Face to face I’m blown offshore
The deep-sea pressure
cracks my core

Death: This fucking nothingness!
You do not just take your life with you go parts of those who:


Love you;
Parent sister child
Love! 

– Love your capitulation corrupts

The power life
my hope and faith

It tares me apart
leave me open for the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why did you do it?
Oh, why did you do it?
Oh, why did you do it?
Oh, why did you do it?
Oh, why did you do it?
Oh, why did you do it?
Oh, why did you do it?
Oh, why did you do it?

love?

dark

Take
A
Deep
Breath:

Breathe

Breathe

Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it? Oh, why did you?





Could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it? Oh, could I have stopped it?

 

 

 

 

 

 


I can’t accept that
you prefer nothingness to me.
Do life mean less
than nothing?

 

The loneliness
you must have felt!
I tried to brace you
but I failed


I always worry
you have taught
our kids the way
problems are fought

Death:
This fucking nothingness!
You do not just take your life
with you go parts of those who:

 

Love you;
Parent sister child
Love! 

 

– Love, your capitulation corrupts;

 

The power life
my hope and faith

 

Madness and rage
please help me
through this

Another day
It will feel
different
Everything
change
Nothing
stays
the same
Let it be



Soothing
Soothing
Grief takes time.


Come
I can heal


Your heart


Here inside 


Grief takes time


Old thoughts
return to mind.


You’re still here
with me

Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer!
Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer!
Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer!
Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer! Answer!

 

 

phase

But I

Get no

Answers

From you!

I hear you cry around the corner
I hear you cry around the corner
I host a poltergeist
How will I dare to believe a bad thing can turn out ok again?
I host a poltergeist
How will I dare believe I am significant to anyone?
I host a poltergeist
My questions open up a rift between my world and the one you are in
I start to consider: I start to consider:

 

Death as an alternative for me too…



The more I think the more confused I get
I live with a constant sense of loss even though I made​my way through the grief
Do not leave someone you love
Don’t move the pain forward
Mental fatigue is not a sign of weakness
Exhaustion
It is a sign you had to be too strong too long
What is a sign you had to be too strong too long?
Exhaustion
I pay attention to changes in your behaviour
How are you? What is on your mind?
How are you? What is on your mind?
How are you?

I know
something is right
when I feel
your strength to fight

Deep inside me
there is a part
of you who scream:
Follow your heart!




Death: This fucking nothingness!
You do not just take your life you miss out all the light I:

 

Love you;
Parent sister child
Love!


– Love your capitulation demands


infinite power of me just to stand


And I want to live for two;

I want to live
for you

There is something
odd with
all the commas I use
They have lost their tails

It is I; I got stuck on
full stop

I try to put them back there
Tails
I try to put them back there


Afterwards when I see that I decapitate the viewpoint I need most of all
I get angry I get mad

 

I think this experience will keep me alert and dedicated to

The importance for people
to feel

There is always another way

The importance for people to feel

There is always an other and another; an other way

that there is always always another way


During "Jag har fortfarande ont i min älskade" at Candyland, 2013
Photo: Elin Gunnarsson


FURTHER CONVERSATION

During the first exhibit of the piece at Candyland, whenever I was present I invited people to the gallery bar behind the showroom for a cup of tea and a possibility to chat.
How do you talk about an art piece about pain in a loved one, about suicide?

It is not always necessary to talk. The mere presence of the topic at a public space can be solvent, I think.
The presence of another person with similar (yet always different) experience or understanding, who do not avoid or let the fear of talking about painful things confine the conversation can be liberating and renewing. I myself appriciate that, and try to offer it to others.

I have given several oral presentations of this work and I'm open for collaborations where this piece can serve as an alternative method of talking about similar complex topics.

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Artist talk at Candyland 2013


LITERATURE
Before I started to work with I still have an Other-ache I read a lot of books, articles and scientific reports. Below some of them are listed.

Books
Nostalgia – En Känslas Historia by Karin Johannisson
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason by Michel Foucault
Det självutplånande barnet by Alice Miller
The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
Psykiatri och Mentalhygigen by Gunnar A. R. Lundquist
Melankoliska Rum by Karin Johannisson
Jag vill inte dö, jag vill bara inte leva längre by Ann Heberlein
En dåre fri by Beate Grimsrud
A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes

Articles and scientific reports
Preventing Suicide; A resource for primary health care workers - WHO 2000
Cross-national analysis of the associations among mental disorders and suicidal behavior: findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys - Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 2009
Familial transmission of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts: evidence from a general population sample - Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University New York, USA 2004
Parental psychopathology and the risk of suicidal behavior in their offspring: results from the World Mental Health surveys - Article in scientific journal Molecular Psychiatry 2010
Youth depression and early childrearing: stress generation and intergenerational transmission of depression - Department of Psychology, University of California-Los Angeles USA 2011
Psychiatric morbidity, violent crime, and suicide among children and adolescents exposed to parental death - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA 2010
Intergenerational transmission and continuity of stress and depression: depressed women and their offspring in 20 years of follow-up - Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 2012
Symptoms of Codependency - Darlene Lancer JD MFT
Föräldrars självmord ökar risk för psykisk ohälsa - Pressrelease from Karolinska Institutet SWE and John Hopkins University USA 2010

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During "Jag har fortfarande ont i min älskade" at Candyland, 2013

iiiiiiiiii During "Jag har fortfarande ont i min älskade" at Candyland, 2013