The Somnambulists

The book is a collection of essays and images that inspired Zoe Beloffs video installation, The Somnambulists 2008. Comprised of five miniature wooden theaters into which moving images are projected, her work centers on the idea of staging the unconscious . Each theater presents a hysterical drama. These include History of a Fixed Idea and A Modern Case of Possession in which two patients of the famous French psycho-pathologist Pierre Janet, express their delusions in song. Other theaters present the ghostly specters of actual hysterics filmed by doctors a hundred years ago. The texts and images included in the book illuminate the complex interweaving of ideas from psychology, writing, performance, art, and moving-image technology at the end of the 19th century. It begins with an introduction to the Players; brief biographies of the scholars, artists, and performers who appear in this volume. The texts include Pierre Janets case study of the writer Raymond Roussel, the Surrealists celebration of hysteria as the greatest poetical invention of the 19th century in The Fiftieth Anniversary of Hysteria and the pioneering psychic researcher Frederic W.H. Myers commentary on Janets contribution to the discovery of the unconscious. Also included are rarely seen photographs by Albert von Schrenck Notzing of artistic production under the influence of hypnosis including images of the celebrated dream dancer Magdelaine G. Included with the book is a DVD-ROM in which Beloffs installation can be viewed as an interactive work for Mac and PC.