Mommy and I are One (2016) is a meditation on time, tedium, and the perception of the self. Running time: 9.5 hours.
Mommy and I are One derives its name from the 1985 psychological study in which subjects were presented with the subliminal visual message “Mommy and I are one.” The study found that the stimulus triggered unconscious associations with the subjects’ childhoods: those with positive childhood mothering saw positive effects following the subliminal presentation. They got better grades; they successfully stopped smoking.
“The mother becomes the background against which the baby lives, becomes time.” - Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness: The End of a Diary.
A baby monitor records the child sleeping for nine and a half hours. The omnipresence of the monitor’s white noise suggests that the mother’s listening ears do not get to rest, even when her child does. A webcam view displays nine and a half hours of the nearby ocean. The ocean provides a sense of universal time as its waves count the seconds into minutes and hours. Another quadrant shows the mother’s daily diary. It is only about the child's activities, meals, and bodily functions. One day fades into the next and the mother never stops keeping track. Her activities are never mentioned; it is assumed that the child’s activities are her own.
Another quadrant shows the influence of the culture in which Americans raise their young. Ever conscious of wanting to be “the good mother of early childhood,” the mother reads books on how to do this properly and in accordance with the natural world. The books tell her to keep her child close by at all times, to not use diapers, and to home school. The mother’s affinity with these cultural views contribute to her own oppression as she strives to be the best possible mother.
At irregular intervals we hear a field recording of a child singing a repetitive song: “The Expert of Your Time,” (“I will be the same as you/Now I’m the expert of your time”). The video is interrupted three times per hour with a title card reading “Mommy and I are one,” in simulation of a subliminal message presentation.
Mommy and I are One derives its name from the 1985 psychological study in which subjects were presented with the subliminal visual message “Mommy and I are one.” The study found that the stimulus triggered unconscious associations with the subjects’ childhoods: those with positive childhood mothering saw positive effects following the subliminal presentation. They got better grades; they successfully stopped smoking.
“The mother becomes the background against which the baby lives, becomes time.” - Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness: The End of a Diary.
A baby monitor records the child sleeping for nine and a half hours. The omnipresence of the monitor’s white noise suggests that the mother’s listening ears do not get to rest, even when her child does. A webcam view displays nine and a half hours of the nearby ocean. The ocean provides a sense of universal time as its waves count the seconds into minutes and hours. Another quadrant shows the mother’s daily diary. It is only about the child's activities, meals, and bodily functions. One day fades into the next and the mother never stops keeping track. Her activities are never mentioned; it is assumed that the child’s activities are her own.
Another quadrant shows the influence of the culture in which Americans raise their young. Ever conscious of wanting to be “the good mother of early childhood,” the mother reads books on how to do this properly and in accordance with the natural world. The books tell her to keep her child close by at all times, to not use diapers, and to home school. The mother’s affinity with these cultural views contribute to her own oppression as she strives to be the best possible mother.
At irregular intervals we hear a field recording of a child singing a repetitive song: “The Expert of Your Time,” (“I will be the same as you/Now I’m the expert of your time”). The video is interrupted three times per hour with a title card reading “Mommy and I are one,” in simulation of a subliminal message presentation.