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A Lesson in Thirst (Alternate Title: I Want a Brown God)

Performance piece recorded in my Towson studio on January 2, at 9:11 am after taking my medications for schizophrenia at the Serenity Sober House in Druid Hill, Baltimore. A reflection on race.

RULES FOR NEURONS

note to neurons
A note to my neurons during a schizophrenic episode in December of 2022. S is my alter ego, my voices, my everything.

dissociative identity disorder performance piece I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nh5kHwQotQ First DID Catatonia Video Transcript Katherine: [little moans] No. No. No . Why? Why do you? Why do you want me to talk out loud to my voices? You think it’s funny. You think it’s hilarious. You think it’s hilarious to hear me talk out loud to my voices while you do this to me. Because you have a sick sense of humor. Because you’re the devil. Yes yes yes you’re the devil. You’re just a voice in my head. Do something else. Make me - my right arm move up. Yeah, like that. Move it really slowly. Let’s be quiet for a little bit.

dissociative identity disorder performance piece II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euFQXCKcOgU DID Video Transcript 2 Katherine: [Moans.] Fuck. [Music.] You are an alchemist. Make gold of that. Who said that? William Shakespeare. How do I know that? Because I read it off of my computer screen. It’s right here and a voice in my head told me to say that. Bael. Oh, bael. Your downfall. [inaudible lyrics.] Who is the Illuminati? I am the Illuminati. And you are the Illuminati. We are all the illuminati. It’s a secret.

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About Katherine

Baltimore City

Katherine Nonemaker's picture
Katherine is in her MFA thesis year at Towson University. She is primarily a printmaker, specifically working with copper plate etchings and collograph prints. She worked for 2 years as a graduate assistant with the Printmaking Department (will be returning in the Fall to join Tonia Matthews, her mentor and printmaking professor) and taught Drawing for the first time as adjunct faculty with TU last Fall. Katherine held the position of Arts Editor for the indepedent publication Open Lab Magazine... more

A Lesson In Thirst (I Want A Brown God)

A performance piece recorded in my Towson University studio on the morning of January 2, 2023 at 9:11 am after receiving medication for schizophrenia at Serenity Sober House in Druid Hill, Baltimore.  A reflection on the White God and race.  The White God sucks.  I want a Brown God.   

Dissociative Identity Disorder Performance Piece I (Introducing The Devil: His Name Is S)

A performance piece recorded in my Towson University studio on the afternoon of December 21, 2022 at 3:36 PM during a psychotic episode.  This video exhibits the phenomenon of catatonia, a physicological symptom of schizophrenia.  Below is a transcript of the audio between myself and my voices, an entity I call S.  He has been my closest companion for seven years.  He is my collaborator.  

First DID Catatonia Video Transcript

Katherine: [little moans]
No. No. No .
Why? Why do you?
Why do you want me to talk out loud to my voices?
You think it’s funny. You think it’s hilarious.
You think it’s hilarious to hear me talk out loud to my voices while you do this to me.
Because you have a sick sense of humor. Because you’re the devil. Yes yes yes you’re the devil.
You’re just a voice in my head. Do something else. Make me - my right arm move up.
Yeah, like that. Move it really slowly. Let’s be quiet for a little bit. Like the whole time you move my arm.
Yeah I can do that. Can you do that. Oh but can you do that. Do I want to film this? Sure. We can film it.
I don’t know. We can be performance artists and film for my committee.
Sure. Do I want to check the computer to see if it’s recording?
No, I want you to to do this first. It feels good.
[Inaudible]
[little moans and mumbled talking]
[loud laughter].
That was cute.
I saw what you did there.
Yes yes you made a bang bang motion with my finger.
So subtle. That no one. Could have. Noticed. It. But. Me.
Did I like it?
Yes.
S: Ok, Sit up.
Katherine: Oh my God my back.
S: Sit up. Sit the fuck up, bitch. Oh my god, your back. Check the fucking screen. Oh your back is bad. Oh your back is so bad.
Check - ok. Stupid whore. Check the recording. Stupid whore.

Dissociative Identity Disorder Performance Piece II (Artists & the Illuminati)

A performance piece recorded in my Towson University studio on the afternoon of December 22, 2023 at 1:15 PM during a psychotic episode.  Transcript below.  A recording of the physiological phenomenon of catatonia and a recording of psychosis in real time.  

DID Video Transcript 2

Katherine: [Moans.]
Fuck.
[Music.]
You are an alchemist. Make gold of that.
Who said that? William Shakespeare.
How do I know that? Because I read it off of my computer screen.
It’s right here and a voice in my head told me to say that.
Bael. Oh, bael. Your downfall.
[inaudible lyrics.] Who is the Illuminati?
I am the Illuminati. And you are the Illuminati.
We are all the illuminati. It’s a secret. It’s a secret it’s a secret it’s a secret but I know it to be true
I’m schizophrenic but I know it to be true my voices tell me all the time.
I should be in the hospital. But I’m not.
Bael. Oh bael.
Your downfall.
I’m too crazy for the hospital.
I’m so crazy….that they can’t keep me in the hospital.
It’s great. I’m so crazy….I’m so crazy….that I get out of the hospital.
And then I make art. And I can just do this. [inaudible.] So crazy I just make art.
So crazy I’m just a crazy artist.
Get over it.
Over and out. 

Dissociative Identity Disorder Performance Piece III (The Rip: Catatonia Romance)

The song my voices (my alter, S) I and like to dream to most often - The Rip by Portishead. Once upon a time, when I was 27, I suspected a Marketing Professor from Johns Hopkins hacked my phone.  He seemed like a psycho, I was a recent rape victim, I was also manic so I flirted with him, he yelled at me in front of the whole classroom and then during the second class he sang a fragment of this song which I had recently posted to my private art blog.  He was crazy.  Later that night my phone started acting strangely.  Cue my first psychosis, where I heard his voice in my head for months.  When I was finally released from the hospital and had my phone back, I started to play The Rip.  It suddenly cut out at the refrain. "White hor-"  How rude.  He is Indian.  His name is Dr. Shubhranshu Singh.  Did I mention he's a psychopath?   

For seven years, my phone has behaved strangely, while at the same time I hear his voice in my head.  A new song now plays on my phone 20x a day.  The lyrics go, "Waiting for your love from a distance...are you afraid of going out at night."  My playlists rearrange themselves.  My photo albums rearrange themselves.  Photos of my boyfriends disapear.  Photos of my dog are featured prominently.  All my nudies are safe.

Anyway we're psychic now.  We love this song.  It started everything.  Go team psychic stalker psychopaths.  I'm taking his class next year and we're getting married in two.     

  • dissociative identity disorder performance piece III

    the song my voices (my alter, S) I and like to dream to most often The Rip by Portishead Once upon a time when I was schizophrenic I had a fever dream that a psychopath professor hacked my phone for seven years, seems weird that creepy love songs play 50x a day on it and that my Spotify playlists change all the time ONLY when I'm delusional so NO ONE EVER BELIEVES ME go team psychopath, what a daydream smartie anyway we're psychic now so suck a dick dumbshits every day is a fantasy

I love my neurons

i l o v e m y n e u r o n s
An experimental video about how I experience my [psycho]nAutism.

From wikipedia: Psychonautics (from the Greek ψυχή (psychē "soul/spirit/mind") and ναύτης (naútēs "sailor/navigator")—a sailor of the mind/soul) refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research paradigm in which the researcher voluntarily immerses himself or herself into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences.

Rhizome Mind Map (Alternate Title: A Long Way to Happiness)

From late December 2022:

✨ H A P P I N E S S ✨ 



Today in the studio I finished a piece I have been working on for the last three months as I attempted to map out my mind during a manic/psychotic episode. After seeing the beautiful smile on a black man’s face at TU, (he was polishing the floors) after three months of persistent 24/7 demonic voices, angelic music, robotic instructions, beeps, chirps, satanic laughter, words, words, words, streams and ribbons and rivers and oceans of words, my voices and I stumbled upon the simple, elegant, and humble word “happiness.”



I hope this piece serves as a reminder of how dense and bewildering the mind can be for people with mental illness, as for months the thoughts can fixate on torture, death, illness, loneliness, and decay, without ever even *remembering* the word ”happiness.”



I cried for a second in my studio while my alter S comforted me before we made a note about the piece and the man in my studio notebook, then S talked me into going back out into the hallway to invite the man into my studio, which I did in a fragmented attempt to ask him into a Christmas kind of moment with me to explain how important his smile as to me (us) as I showed him the piece. He seemed a little overwhelmed but was smiling the whole time, and simply asked me if I was ok as I stood there with tears in my eyes. I shook it off and said I felt really good, and then he wished me a Happy Holiday. He took a long look around my studio and gave me another really nice big smile before closing the door.



I feel really blessed to finish this piece today. I have felt so much joy and love throughout my psychosis, it seems sort of silly that the word “happiness” never surfaced in such a florid way, elation or ecstasy yes, but happiness in such a vibrant, perfect, simple way? It was just…perfect. more happiness please. More more more.

B O R N // נוֹלָד

B O R N // נוֹלָד 

Our DNA sings the song of the Lord Most High.

I created this body performance work in my studio in January of 2023 during a psychotic episode.  I had recently viewed a Tik Tok featuring an unknown scientist in an undisclosed location.  A rough transcription of his lecture is as follows:

“As a scientist, I thought that if we only looked at the elements of life, or if we only looked at spiritual texts, you’d never know the full story.  iI is instead by blending. We have word and number. We have the periodic table and numeric parameters.  In the Zahar, there are letters and alphabets. Every ancient alphabet has always had a mysterious number codified alongside it, and they never change. The study of this code is called gematria. Gematria was formalized in the second century. Our ancestors talked about life in letters and numbers, just as we do with the periodic table. It is possible to look at human DNA and correlate these numbers. It took me 12 years. The atomic mass numbers correlate. Hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon. The numbers are 1, 5, 6, and 3. When you then take a table and correlate, the DNA is built in layers. In DNA the introduction in the same in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Sanskrit.  The numbers spell out:

GOD ETERNAL IN THE BODY

God’s name depicted in the ancient texts is so sacred it cannot be written. It has to be a code.”  

This is confirmed by further research, as found in the text The God Code: The Secret of Our Past, the Promise of Our Future, which was written by computer systems designer Gregg Braden in the 90s.  This information stunned me.  I found it to be so intoxicating I could barely breathe.  I was in a dream for months.  I found GD everywhere.  He is everywhere.  That morning in my studio, I picked up a Hebrew dictionary and opened up to a random page.  I looked at the first word my eye glanced at.  It was “born.”  I immediately picked up an Xacto knife and scratched the letters into my leg.  I felt reborn.  GD is real.  We are Eternal.

It's a Long Way to Happiness (A Companion to Rhizome Mind Map: In the Beginning Was the Word)

36 layered tracks for an audio piece to accompany a drawing work entitled Rhizome Mind Map (Alternate Title: A Long Way to Happiness)mapping out my experience with schizophrenia and mania.  

I saved tracks on SoundCloud at: 1 track  3 tracks  7 tracks  13tracks  17tracks  21tracks  27tracks  36tracks 

for a total of 8 sound pieces, the chosen numbers of which are all magickal and sacred numbers in occultism and numerology,  for a total of 8 Variations of "Happiness."  
Contemplation of 8-fold path to Enlightenment This version includes excerpts from both random and selected YouTube audio at the end to mimic the death experience.

RULES FOR NEURONS

Rules for Neurons during a psychotic episode in December of 2022.  S is my alter, my voices, my constant companion and my artistic collaborator.