(M)ysteria: City (e)Scapes •

In this blog post, I introduce a project that explores how our environments—social situations and buildings, the containers for our well-being, becoming, and socializing—affect us through weather, materials, and mirror reflections.

The title is a pun on the flower Wisteria, which symbolizes love, support, and longevity—traits needed to undergo an alchemical process. It also plays on the psychological concept of hysteria, a clinical diagnosis predominantly given to women in the 19th century, and the mystery of the alchemical process of individuation.

Before Freud's use of the term, hysteria was historically linked to the Greek word for uterus, suggesting that symptoms like paralysis, fainting, and sensory disturbances were tied to the female reproductive system.

Whenever a container or cistern holds mass or liquid and motion stops, stagnation can lead to souring, rotting, or putrefying. Plato described such a container as a matrix, a mystery in itself. A matrix is the structure of any system that enables connections, much like the brain's synapses. The female reproductive organ, the gut, and the heart can all be seen as mysterious matrices of the human body.

CISTERN / CAVITY / CARIES

Etymologically, the uterus has been linked to "cistern" and includes notions of prison and chest—both containers in life and death. Here are three etymological developments rooted in the word "cistern," which I think should be used as metaphors to connect to and work with the patterns underlying the symptom of hysteria, indicating a process of individuation rather than a category of genderfication:

CISTERN - which in my research I found an unusual  reference to as cistery, and foubd in a Lacock Abbey - there is a pun here - in France - is an artificial reservoir (usually an underground tank) for storing liquids, particularly water. Historically, it could also be a large vessel, often made of silver, used at dining tables to cool wine. It can also refer to a fluid-containing sac or cavity in living organisms. For over a millennium, the term has evolved to mean a natural or artificial receptacle for holding fluids. From Old French "cisterne" (dungeon, underground prison) and Latin "cista" (chest or box), to Greek "kistē" (box, chest), it encompasses both the tangible and the unconscious, the living heart's container.

CAVITY is an unfilled space within a mass, a hollowed-out area prone to inflammation and decay, such as dental caries.

CARIES is a progressive inflammation and destruction of tooth and bone, thus linking this anatomical excursion to the joints as well.

Today we don’t call it hysteria, and the symptoms have slightly changed. However, for the sake of this examination, hysteria (or similar conditions) in women is linked to suppressed anger and rage, stemming from the lack of socially acceptable ways for women to express and assert these emotions, and emotions untowards general and specific experiences of inequality.

Expression of feelings between human beings, depending on proximity, ideally happens through the oral capacity for words and is based in the mouth. There is an anatomical and histological link between the tissues in the mouth and the vagina of women. Both the oral mucosa (lining of the mouth) and the vaginal mucosa (lining of the vagina) are composed of stratified squamous epithelium, although they have different functions and are adapted to different environments—the external entry into the uterus. There is also a link between teeth and feelings of anger through clenching to control these emotions.

Unintegrated aggression leads to sublimation—a balance of suppression and containment that, depending on the ability to facilitate anger orally or physically, can result in either a destructive or constructive overflow of creative energy. Unexpressed anger, when internalised, has contributed to the development of the concept of hysteria. What is essential for creativity and a creative life is to return to the proper place, the concept of aggression. 

I propose that hysteria, as traditionally understood, describes the negative or inflamed overflow of this function. By transforming hysteria into an alchemical process of ongoing "(M)ysteria," a flower of transformation, examining the place and the genealogical structures of anger and rage in our families, we can create new avenues for women (and others) to assert and channel their emotions creatively and constructively, thereby reshaping how our feelings and emotions are categorised and directed in everyday language and beyond.

Until next time, I wish you a wonderful end of spring, looking forward to a summer full of experimenting and lots of nice breezes.

Love,
Camilla