‘The madman thinks he is unmasking when, in fact, he is putting on a mask.’ –Michel Foucault
Posing as patients, three undercover observers got themselves admitted as patients to a locked psychiatric ward to investigate conditions on the inside.
Each undercover patient had rehearsed an extensive back story, and the supposed family members who visited them were professional actors. A remote team monitored the project via hidden cameras and microphones from a command center in a nearby hotel.
The project, which took place this spring in De Gelderse Roos, a psychiatric complex about 40 miles from Amsterdam, was not a sting operation. The staff was told there would be mystery shoppers, of a sort, in the facility over a couple of months.
{ NY Times | Continue reading }
Le fou est le joueur déréglé du Même et de l’Autre. Il prend les choses pour ce qu’elles ne sont pas, et les gens les uns pour les autres; il ignore ses amis, reconnaît les étrangers; il croit démasquer, et il impose un masque.
{ Michel Foucault, Les Mots et les choses, 1966 }
video { San Clemente, directed by Raymond Depardon and Sophie Ristelhueber, 1977 }
