Madame I is a short film for mobile phones, inspired by a neurological study in the early 20th century, documenting a patients’ loss of proprioception or bodily awareness. The patient’s predicament, and her lucid, poignant description of it, here resonates with the disembodied nature of our contemporary networked lives, of everyday mobile and digital technologies.

Year: 2006
Exhibitions/Screenings: ‘61st Edinburgh International Film Festival’, Edinburgh, Scotland (2007); ‘Survey’ Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, (2007); ‘Bird’s Eye Film Festival’, London (2008); ‘artisgoodforyou’ Thomas Street, Dublin, ISEA2009 Pre-symposium event (2008); ‘Alt-w: New Directions in Scottish Digital Culture’, CCA, Glasgow (2008)

Film: Madame I - 02:01mins

"I am not longer aware of myself as I used to be. I can no longer feel my arms, my legs, my head, and my hair. I have to touch myself constantly in order to know how I am"

This short film for mobile phones was inspired by Madame I, a patient from the early 1900’s, of the neurologists Drs G Deny and P Camus, whose case is documented in the article ‘Sur une forme d'hypocondrie aberrante due à la perte de la conscience du corps’, published in Revue Neurologique in 1905. The article details the patient’s experience of Cotard Syndrome, often described as the delusional belief that one is dead or non-existent. Cotard Syndrome is a rare disorder of the bodily self, involving illusions of bodily dissolution, somatosensory feelings of unreality and beliefs of non-existence (Bogousslavsky J (ed): Neurologic-Psychiatric Syndromes in Focus. Part II - From Psychiatry to Neurology. Front Neurol Neurosci. Basel, Karger, 2018, vol 42, pp 23-34).

Beverley translated the original article from French to English via online translation tools, and used the resulting text as the basis for a film script, written from the point of view of the patient, Madame I. The film transposes the story of Madame I’s real-life loss of bodily awareness onto a 3D computer generated character (modelled on the artist), which is brought to life using digital animated and a specially engineers speech synthesis voiced (developed from the artist’s voice). From inside a mobile phone, Madame I contemplates the nature of her disembodied predicament.

“A character in search of a movie? A soul separated from its body? What – and where – is Madame I? Artist Beverley Hood has used mobile technology to highlight the fragmented, technology-dependent nature of modern existence.”
Edinburgh Film Festival 2007

Credits: Beverley Hood (written, directed, 3D animation, and editing); Kenny Lam (3D character design); CereProc (speech synthesis); The Tacticus Project (haptic computer modelling); Sharewire (3GP download support)

Funders: Artist’s Film & Video production supported by The National Lottery through Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen