For the Oliver Sacks research project, I chose to read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, and Other Clinical Tales. There were a few aspects of the book that stood out to me. They pertain to the work we’ve been doing in our course, and offered a prime opportunity for me to examine these topics in the context of my own life. One example of a quote that resonated with me from Sack’s book is:

Neurology’s favorite word is ‘deficit’, denoting an impairment or incapacity of 

neurological function: loss of speech, loss of language, loss of memory, loss of vision, loss of dexterity, loss of identity and myriad other lacks and losses of specific functions (or faculties). For all of these dysfunctions (another favorite term), we have privative words of every sort—Aphonia, Aphemia, Aphasia, Alexia, Apraxia, Agnosia, Amnesia, Ataxia—a word for every specific neural or mental function of which patients, through disease, or injury, or failure to develop, may find themselves partly or wholly deprived. (Sacks 1973, p. 7).

Sacks highlights an important point through this quote. Throughout medicine, but especially in the fields of neurology and psychiatry, conditions are viewed as “deficits” rather than “variations” of the normal human condition. In the case of our class project, “Different, Not Less,” we are exploring these conditions in the context of variations, rather than depicting them as errors or faults in the person experiencing them. “Deprivation” is an interesting concept that is considered frequently when a patient is experiencing a mental disorder or condition. However, not all patients feel “deprived” by their condition, and some may even find that the condition ends up becoming part of their identity in a positive way. 

In addition to Sacks’ point regarding the “deficits” patients experience, I found this portion regarding artists and visual agnosia to be quite intriguing as well:

He had indeed moved from realism to nonrepresentation to the abstract, yet this was not the artist, but the pathology, advancing— advancing towards a profound visual agnosia, in which all powers of representation and imagery, all sense of the concrete, all sense of reality, were being destroyed. This wall of paintings was a tragic pathological exhibit, which belonged to neurology, not art. (Sacks 1973 p. 19).

In my “Memory” project for this course, I highlighted different characteristics that I would remember my friends by when I am no longer able to recall them through photographic memory. The “tragic pathological exhibit” that Sacks mentions is what I feel my project precedes; my project shows what I, a healthy 20 year old artist, is able to portray my friends through my art. But what about if my memory does begin to deteriorate? Will I be able to depict these characteristics in my friends as I get older? Will these traits still resonate with me? This is what I seeked to capture in my project, and what Sacks’ case study on this patient reinforced.

Overall, reading Oliver Sacks’ book provided an opportunity for introspection and serious consideration of how my mental competency could evolve or change over time. It also provided me the opportunity to examine this in the context of my identity as an artist. I have encountered Sacks’ work in the past, and hope to encounter it again in a subsequent course.