"Oursler’s thematic concerns betray classic Freudian anxieties about sex and death. In Grand Mal, the hero takes a convoluted odyssey through a landscape of disturbing experiences. The video’s free association includes, "digressions about the difference between salt and sugar and a version of the creation myth that is both banal and terrifying."
— Christine Tamblyn, “Art Notes,” Scan (November/December 1981)
Tony Oursler’s expressionistic reveries incorporate phantasmagoric sets and rambling stream-of-diseased-consciousness narrative that serve to illustrate the depths of a psyche becoming unhinged. Oursler’s early tapes of personal investigation and social reflection earned him a cult following among New York audiences; his more recent installation work has used projected images on sculptural forms. Oursler has collaborated with a number of other artists, including Constance DeJong, Joe Gibbons, and the band Sonic Youth.