Directed by Liz Magic Laser • Documentary • With Liz Magic Laser • 2023 • 54 minutes

Edited by Isaac Goes and Michelle Yoon of Kinet Media. Cinematography and additional editing by Laura Geisswiller.

Performance artist and filmmaker, Liz Magic Laser, explores the shaking body as both a symptom and a cure for psychic distress through the lineage of psychosomatic disorders, from historical concepts of hysteria to contemporary diagnoses of nonepileptic seizures, to spirit possession. Filmed in collaboration with French journalist Laura Geisswiller, Convulsive States features interviews with doctors, historians, and dance therapists. These conversations are interwoven with footage from inside and around the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital—once a stage for Charcot’s clinical and theatrical demonstrations using his patients. His lectures on hysteria formed the foundations of psychoanalysis, which Laser takes as a point of departure into sensuous and mimetically embodied realms. Laser links the continued relevance of Charcot’s Hysteria studies to recent events, such as outbreaks of TikTok tics spread via social media. Gradually, the film moves from “objective journalism” to personal essay as Laser uncovers her own manifestation of the disorder she set out to study.

“A veritable explosion of archive fever that asks us to contemplate the horrifying, shocking, yet glorious extremities of historical and contemporary bodies.” —Frieze

Convulsive States was commissioned by Pioneer Works. Curator: Gabriel Florenz / Associate Curator: Vivian Chui. Convulsive States was made possible by generous funding from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. It is also supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.