SELF – a journey into the human psyche

How does a mentally ill person feel? How do they perceive the world? Or perhaps the division between mentally healthy and mentally ill people does not exist at all? For the creators of the project, their interest in producing photographic and film images has for years gone hand in hand with an attempt to understand and be open to the world of the psyche. When these two worlds (film and psychology) have the opportunity to meet – finding common ground on an artistic level – ideas such as SELF ( dir. Patryk Jordanowicz, Tadeusz Chudy) are born, to which viewers will be invited through the audiovisual medium of VR.

SELF is intended to be a powerful and memorable immersive experience for the viewer. Understanding otherness comes from experience, which is understood as a lived experience. Understanding, in turn, creates tolerance. The visual and audio stimuli of this project are only a path, a tool to generate emotions in the audience similar to those experienced by people affected by mental illness. The creators want to evoke a state of contemplation, melancholy, and empathy in the viewer. SELF touches on an extremely sensitive topic, which is why it has been created from the very beginning with the participation of people who deal with mental health on a daily basis.

The concept of SELF’s story is based on a mosaic structure. The stories presented are memories from different stages of the recovery process of former patients, and their real silhouettes will be set in a minimalist 3D environment. Flashbacks will materialize in the form of voice-over commentary, and the use of ambisonic sound will highlight the properties of the cinematic VR category.