Living with periodic seizures from the age of nine has played a significant psychological part in the making of Dean’s art, but it is only in recent years that he has addressed it directly, as illustrated by two videos, Sneeze 2000 and Blinky 2004.

Inserted into an album case with elegant metal covers, Blinky runs for a charged 1: 37 minutes. The ritual of opening the album, which automatically triggers the playing of the video, is a private and intimate moment. For close to a minute and half we, the viewers, share Dean’s experience as his body is convulsed by involuntary muscular and neural seizures. 

As Dean came to recognize over the past decade the intrinsically autobiographical nature of his performances and installations, he felt the need to make the act of living with this condition a part of his work.