Eleanor Ivory Weber & Cassandra Seltman
Diagnosis

Performance by Eleanor Ivory Weber and Cassandra Seltman as part of the exhibition Burn The Diaries, Read Them Out Loud

Stuck deep in the fantasy of wasted time, two protagonists bicker over the accidents and necessities that got them here: Being in this room is a big waste of time / Not being in this room would be a waste of time / Should we just try to enjoy ourselves? / I am enjoying myself. / Fuck you. A couple, an ex-couple, always a couple, the pair seek in vain to repair all that’s gone wrong in their relationship before in order to guarantee whatever’s to come will not be a waste of time: We are back in Vienna, where we’ve never been before.

In the spirit of the exhibition’s focus on process and language, artist Eleanor Ivory Weber and psychoanalyst Cassandra Seltman present the first public reading of the script for their play-in-progress, Diagnosis. The title alludes to the clinical and the diabolical, the diachronic and the diaristic, pursuing signs and symptoms as they appear in dialogue, diatribe and the drive to know – however diaphanous that knowing may be.

The performance is free of charge with a valid exhibition ticket.

Eleanor Ivory Weber’s pointed poem of dualisms Smoking is good commandeers part of the LED which spans the Kunsthalle’s façade. Weber (b. Australia) is a writer, artist and publisher. Her writing has been published in magazines and periodicals including Afterall, Collateral, Flash Art, Jacket2, Le Chauffage, Meanjin, Paradis, Starship and in artist catalogues. Weber is a PhD candidate at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels. She is a co-founder and co-director of Divided, a publishing house established in Brussels and London. Weber lives and works in Brussels.

Dr. Cassandra Seltman is a psychoanalyst and writer in private practice in New York City. She teaches diagnostics at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) and in the master’s programme at Hunter College. Selected publications include LA Review of Books, Flash Art, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, the European Journal of Psychoanalysis and May Revue.