ON
Is it possible to exist without a physical body? The answer lies where I am: the same place as the body. But the virtual depicted world is somewhere beyond everywhere. Like the promised world after death and the hereafter of religions, the depicted world has buried the body and only an idea of it remains, a reference and a dream of the body. Even the day will come when the body has become a symbol. A sign and symbol that can be consumed for many things and refer to something else, like a gravestone containing the specifications and identity of the buried body.
The body, which once was taking back its own realm from subjectivism, is now no longer a salty meat that does not fit in itself. This body that wanted to become Anti-self now was rejected not by the objectification of religion but by the universal promise of the Metaverse. In pure self. The body, like a pile of meat, is sitting on a chair and staring at the reflection of the image. The hope of Paul Cezanne in Merleau-Ponty’s thought to achieve sensory perception and tangible matter has been lost. This self-made body has been melted under a bombardment of images.
In the two-sided video art ON, opposite feelings are felt. The first side is a body that wants to escape from itself and emerge from its inside, similar to Francis Bacon’s “Screaming Pop” painting in Deleuze’s thought. The other side is the self that wants to leave the body. This two-sided effort can be seen in the open mouth cavity. But at the same time, on the surface of the body and face, a different sensation is felt: the power of the gesture, which seeks to confiscate these conflicting efforts for its benefit. The core of the depicted and virtual world is the gesture, or perhaps the pretense, that aims to reduce these bodily states to a kind of consumable and visual beauty. The ON video and its image and frame, intertwined this body and its conflicting meanings and feelings in a way that it seems the body is terrified under the control of the video.
In the meantime, the audience, based on their physical habits, memory, and tendency to take selfies, wants to rotate the screen, whether it’s on a mobile phone or a projector screen, to make the image compatible with their body and habitual patterns. The same body part has become an integral part of their body, whether organic or artificial. The mobile device… However, which forces are at play, and which ones are advancing toward their goals? The answer may lie in the processes and screams that incorporate a layer of laughter, reminding us of the laughs of the Butoh dance.