Dissected Soul by Theda Tammas @ Split Screen Installation Space

There was no special opening, which is very cool in fact, because openings always are a bit bad for really seeing a work and more a social venue leading attention away from it all.  The notecard that was sent however contained a quote from a poem by Fernando Pessoa called ‘I don’t know how many souls I have’. It reminds me a bit at another poem by Pablo Neruda: ‘We are many’.  Both poems refer at how hard it is to actually define ourselves as person, character and living being, because we have so many faces, identities and emotions, it is impossible to say: ‘This the real me’.  We never are the same ME, only a variation on the other ME’s. Our soul contains many souls which makes us who we are. A soulful existence never stops expanding itself with new pieces of us. We adjust, adapt, dedicate or abandon. We reject and accept, love and hate, laugh and cry, leaving traces of our emotional DNA behind around us. We are affected by theirs, they are affected by ours and thus new strings of DNA will grow into our souls, rebirthing us or destructing us, feeding us or exhausting us, but always unique and different. Sometimes we can feel like torn apart due to all these different emotions inside of us. Dissection causing confusions and fears, sadness and anger, hope and desperation. In the best case we regain ourselves and recreate our soul into a newer stronger way. But no guarantees. We can fall apart as well another day or year and lose control on repair. That’s life, wonderful and terrible. That’s us. Also in Second Life. Maybe even more, because we depend on restricted versions of ourselves here lacking many options we do have in RL.