Solipsism Syndrome

Janet Biggs, 2006
Single channel SD video with sound
Running time 3:10

Janet Biggs' video Solipsism Syndrome presents an alienating landscape where thrashing underwater dancers, swimming polar bears, and limitless frozen seas pose questions about captivity and free will. Biggs’ subjects are situated at the problematic intersection of beauty, desire, and restraint.

As a theory, solipsism states that all perceptions exist only in an individual's imagination and that there is no reality outside of one's own mind. The whole of life becomes a long dream from which an individual can never wake up. This nightmarish state of mind can be triggered by time spent underwater or in the twenty-four-hour darkness of artic winter nights.

Kurzner, Lisa, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6 June 2008.