Amy Cannestra

Residency: Aspirus 03
13 May - 24 June 2013

Primarily a video artist, the recent work of Amy Cannestra (b USA) looks at pain from three different perspectives. She has recently been working with two different neuroscientists, one that looks at pain through fMRI technology, and one that looks at pain in a cell by cell comparison, the third aspect she examines is the emotional. Each version of pain is very different from one another, but at the same time always affects what and how we feel.
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It has been said, that no matter how we try, we can never experience how another person feels pain. Cannestra would like to challenge that idea and in order to explore this her current work examines the same story told by a variety of individuals in different voices (first, second and third person), and intertwines them to remove the subjective nature of the narrative.

If the subject is removed, will the viewer relate more or less? Will the story become less about what they are seeing and more about the personal experience that the story evokes, or vice versa?

The story assembled for the purposes of this project derives from a combination of writings by neuroscientist Oliver Sacks. During his career as a neuroscientist, Sacks compiled case studies looking at brain trauma, and the way that it changes how a person perceives the world, including how one perceives pain. These reports were published for popular consumption, rather than for his colleagues in the field, and are written in such a way that they are easy for a non scientist to digest. This make them ideal for Cannestra's purpose since it is easier to relate the stories to the self than more academically slanted texts would be.