PROGRAMME

PROGRAMME is a hybrid work that examines the origins of 'hysteria' at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, interweaving documentary, drama and sporadic attempts at hypnotic communication.
In the late 1900s the Salpêtrière was the stage for Dr Charcot's highly theatrical presentations of 'hysteria' featuring star patients such as Blanche Wittman. PROGRAMME examines aspects of the neurologist's practice that imply manipulation, collusion or simulation and revisits the Salpêtrière's history as an establishment of social control. Interviews with historians, dramatic reconstructions and a syphilitic narrator come together to fashion a hysterical narrative that eventually unravels to expose its own construction.