The Syndrome

Presentation and live performance in assistance of Sebastian Kienzl

"The syndrome” added itself to my research and caught my curiosity. A syndrome gets diagnosed through the association of several, clinically recognizable features, signs, symptoms and phenomena. It can have one or multiple causes and looking at a register of 30 pages we have many recognized syndromes.

"Burnout” is a term which nowadays gets used quite inflationary. It is mainly linked to the world of work therefore to economic systems. In the ICD-10 it is recognized and specified as a "State of vital exhaustion" under "Problems related to life-management difficulty". First mentioned in the 70ties, (inspired by the novel "A Burn-out Case” by Graham Green) the burnout gets defined as a multistep model of vital human exhaustion, not being considered though as a "disorder". Cortisol, known as" the stress-hormone", plays a non-clearly identified role, due to its pushing but also repressing effects on the immune system. Now, questions appear: Is this Burn-out-syndrome even real? What are the applications to it and what, if carefully listened, does it say about the settings of a society? What lies there between the lines studying the individual case and how could its symptoms being read considering a systemic approach? Sebastian was so kind to participate in my performative setting as the "guardian of light”. Several burning candles got covered with glass containers and he was asked to protect the flames. During his action, I increased the number of candles, in order to boost his level of stress. It worked. Thank you, Sebastian, and sorry for the adrenalin rush!

Maria C. Hilber

Fact Box

The Syndrome