Sojourning [Sub]alternated Schizophrenias documents a year-long study into the nature of an island existing within dual and opposing realities, identifying the cultural and conceptual framework of these contradictory senses, and forcefully inhabiting such contradictions in order to carve out new[meta]psychical island landscapes through oscillating reality and irreality. This thesis addresses the diverged realities that the islands of the west of Ireland exist within and in focus the island of Inis Mór, the largest in the Aran Islands archipelago-exploring the aspects of the ‘real’ as experienced by the islanders and the opposed ‘imaginary’ as projected outward from the mainland of Ireland in a westerly direction. The thesis stresses the positioning of a westerly lying island’s exteriority as that being an edge condition and peripheral, and its interiority as being subjectively transmutable dependant on countering perspectives. The first perspective of the design project is derived from The Schizophrenic [the historical figure Artaud] and The Architect residing in the derelict fish processing factory.

 

As the liminal point of the island, the point where interiority and exteriority are confronted, the building is occupied with the intention of choreographing a Theatre of Cruelty spectacle. From the perspective of TheSchizophrenic and the Architect, the design project takes the form of seven actors performing on the Landstage, a revealed post-Christian site to direct the island towards hybridity.The perspective of the islander concerns how the architecture is positioned and contextualised within the island landscape, while also, through technical and material expression, providing means of production of potable water, generating osmotic energy as well as other amenities for the island body in order to reduce the reliance of the mainland intervention for the island. For the islander, the actors as composed by The Schizophrenic and The Architect take the form of a series of distorted cottages dispersed on the landscape. The Sojourner’s perspective of the island begins where the islander’s perspective ends, at the liminal point of the pier where dual island realities exist in tandem. The sojourn on an island is an instance of heightened Modernity, entering the island with respectful approach, with an intention of experiencing the island without attempting to alter it. Taking nothing tangible but gaining intangible experiences, the sojourner inhabits the interstitial spaces for the purpose of extracting new island myths and folklore at the considered post-Christian site.