“Be Not Afraid” is a two-channel looped video originally projected on suspended glass screens. A re-enactment of the first hypnotic session ever pictured (from an l9th century engraving) it also incorporates archival footage from the Worlds’ Fairs and NASA Footage.
Be Not Afraid, 2007
In 1784 the Marquis de Puysegur, a follower of Franz Anton Mesmer magnetized – or hypnotized – a shepherd, Victor Race on the Village Green
In the video members of The New Society for Universal Harmony are hypnotized under a tree behind which the viewer can see the remnants of Philip Johnson’s NY State Pavilion, itself a tribute to the U.S. Space Program. The video explores two aspects of modernity, the remnants of the utopian dream and the origins of psychoanalysis.
The video was shot in June 2006 by Ezra Bookstein and Ilana Rein, directed by Kathryn Alexander, edited by Lenore Malen and Ruppert Bohle with a score by Dafna Naphtali. It was produced by Lenore Malen & The New Society for Universal harmony.
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