I have occasionally thought of making work about migraines, or using that as a starting point. I have had migraines since I was a child, and over a lifetime, the nature of them changes. I have less enduring headaches, but still much visual disturbance at times. Over the years I've read and researched various aspects of migraines, and concluded that no one really has all the answers. I don't take the migraine medication because that is worse - like having antifreeze in my system.
I avoid, wear sunglasses alot for the light sensitivity - photophobia, although it's not a phobia. Mint helps. As does coffee - good for migraines because it constricts the nerves, bad for tension headaches for the same reason.
And so I am left with a more or less manageable tendency to migraines - but a purely visual migraine is a phenomenon all to itself. It comes with or without a headache, often without much warning, and comes and goes over a couple of days once it appears. During the drawing project I had such a visual migraine, and for the first time attempted to represent it in drawing. It also brought me into using colour in the drawings.
It's quite hard to describe the experience, as it takes over the entire vision, eyes open and closed, and moves with you. The circular area is fizzy, and increasingly shattered and ridiculously dynamic. It closes in, takes over, until everything is moving, out of focus, shattered and disengaged. It's terrible if it happens away from home, as you can't quite trust yourself to judge things visually, and have to give in to it.
I can quite see how, even over centuries, it is thought that Hildegard of Bingen suffered from migraines. Whether or not she did, I don't think it detracts from her visionary nature at all, as the phenomenon is not just a physical reduction, but can have and engender great personal meaning.
It is now generally agreed that Hildegard suffered from migraine, and that her visions were a result of this condition. The way she describes her visions, the precursors, to visions, to debilitating aftereffects, point to classic symptoms of migraine sufferers. Although a number of visual hallucinations may occur, the more common ones described are the "scotomata" which often follow perceptions of phosphenes in the visual field. Scintillating scotomata are also associated with areas of total blindness in the visual field, something Hildegard might have been describing when she spoke of points of intense light, and also the "extinguished stars." Migraine attacks are usually followed by sickness, paralysis, blindness-all reported by Hildegard, and when they pass, by a period of rebound and feeling better than before, a euphoria also described by her.
(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.asp accessed 12th Nov 2012)
I have referred to migraine before in artwork - my degree piece, Contraption 2006, was a moving image video installation, showing morphing, moving lights. I referred to the fact that I lend meaning to glimpses and glimpses of light. During the degree, and considerably since, I have taken many photos and videos exploring those outer corners of light, finding the meaning there.
These images are all from c.2005/6. I have hundreds more - it's what partly lead me to commit to moving image - as a way of using and linking them and letting them exist.
12th November 2012
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