SICK MUSEUM SYNDROME
Ludwig Museum Budapest, 2011, simultaneously with the exhibition Site Inspection

If Sick Building Syndrome exists as it does, Sick Museum Syndrome might exist as well, when factors of SBS interact with a strictly regulated contemporary art environment under surveillance. In the first phase of researching Sick Museum Syndrome (SMS) in Ludwig Museum, Budapest, volunteers were asked to perform an ambulatory auto-diagnosis, placing a sticker on the respective point on the floor plans of the running exhibitions (1st floor: Site Inspection, an exhibition on museums and the possibilities of institutional critique; 2nd floor: Moholy-Nagy - The Art of Light), whenever they noticed any of the ten different symptoms of this hypothesized illness: audiovisual surfeit, delusion, embarrassment, excitement, enervation, estrangement, angst, indifference, disorientation, or, in spite of all, catharsis. By processing the data, SDWG established the symptom maps of the exhibition spaces and finished the first phase of the research.

During the second phase of the research, starting a week later, SDWG were looking for a treatment. The volunteers were asked to carry out the same auto-diagnosis, but now equipped with Aromaguide, a wearable auricle-to-nostril inhalation tool created by an aromatherapy expert, that contained a custom mixed relaxant aroma, with the Himalayan nard oil being its dominant component. By creating symptom maps from the data gathered in the two surveys, studying the characteristics of SMS and its treatment have finally become possible.

Credits:
Dóra Dobi, Bogdán Funk, Noémi Gyárfás, Olivér Horváth, Gergely Hory, Antal Lakner, Zoltán Major, Dóra Máthé, Péter Müllner, Zsófia Paczolay, Zsigmond Peternák, Zsófia Vancsura, Ágnes Vigh.

Special thanks:
dr. Róbert Gyárfás, Gergõ Kováts, Zsuzsa Máthéné Vass
ADRIENNE FELLER

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