This video by Esther Neff is published on the occasion of “A Report to an Academy”: Student Responses to Kafka as part of the Kafka in New York symposium held on December 5, 2024. Graduate students from the CUNY Graduate Center and SUNY-New Paltz were invited to respond to the themes and materials in the Morgan Library & Museum’s Kafka in New York exhibition in new and subversive ways.
KAFKA’S COGNITION (working title)
Single channel video, 10 minute loop with audio
Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s Life of the Mind and Kafka’s own tracking of his cognitive processes through letters (including writer’s block, and hundreds of verbs e.g. wondering, fearing, searching) this video gives maps, diagrams, and visual representations of mental pathways, all set up within the POV (Point of View) of a New York City rat winding its way through and around “Kafka’s Cognition.” This video is part of a series of cognitive mappings, part of the larger project OUR STUDIES SHOW, a public Philosophy of Mind and social performance project supported by Social Practices CUNY and the Rosette C. Lamont Fellowship.
