Indiscretion is part of The Anesthesia Quartet, a collection of four video works by John Sanborn. The works explore the formation of self - the concepts that tie us to an idea of self and the everyday challenges we must face to maintain a sense of self. The works express self as both a fragile construct requiring constant work and a powerful structure through which to navigate and process the world.
We are powerless to see the whole picture. In a world post-truth where facts are a matter of opinion, this both repels and fascinates us. What’s hidden and what is revealed are our contemporaneous obsessions. So we live double lives, embracing the rich conflicted-ness of things, searching for meaning in those everyday effects – while collecting information by which we imagine we can fashion an equation for closure.
Secrets are the teasing wonder of the veiled soul. Not every secret is meant to remain concealed, but holding on to part of the story is essential to sanity. It turns out that what we imagine is often more powerful than what we know, as we let the conscious mind throw away ideas before they have evolved into something more powerful.
Art is about trying to subsume thought and calculation into the interior of, say, a love story or a tale of triumph and failure.
Existence is an artfully chaotic assemblage of rampant speculation, distorted texts, parodies, sly poses, political tracts and rude jokes. Neither state is complete so we exist somewhere between the two.
- John Sanborn
