How do we liberate the body from systems of representation?
What is left of us when the assemblage of images surrounding us disappears?
What can we become when desire is transformed into erotic power?
The documentation follows the residency of Masako Matsushita (Bando AiR 2024) through the lens of Campi Gravitazionali: the exchange between the projects took place on the weekend of the 26 and 27 of October, where the research of Masako was multiplied into a kaleidoscope of practices, each observing the ambiguous power dynamics between representations, identities and bodies. How does the media, oversaturated by signs and images, subjugate bodies to its iconography? How, in turn, is it possible to reverse these power relations?
The practices proposed by Masako were the “Museum of Personal Identities”, which invited the participants to unpack their backpacks and curate their personal belongings into an exposition and a collage-making with magazines, scissors and glue. The practices were translated into other practices that included transforming or abandoning the original materials. With that in mind, the documentation elongates the choreography of transmutations by assembling the materials and reflections from the weekend into a narration of the knowledge that emerged.
NOTE:
The text is a cut-up of the participant’s reflections that emerged during a collective brainstorming session with the created collage. All the images refer to the practices that we generated.
Thinking partner:
“Ectoplasm Feminism: Notes on the Materiality of Ghosts” of Laura Tripaldi, (https://www.neroeditions.com/ectoplasm-feminism/)
Kadri Sirel