The most wonderful music in the world: The Body

Written by Yeh Chia-Ming

Why on earth is the body issue worth discussing under the circumstances of overflowing information in modern society nowadays? French choreographer Jérôme Bel applied lipsticks and human urine on human body in his work Jérôme Bel (which was named after himself) to perform on the stage with nudity so that there was a success on the box office which you would find it hard to get a ticket. Coincidentally, the play Once, Upon Hearing The Skin Tone directed by Taiwanese director Cyrus Wong Ka-Ming, challenged the perspectives of audiences in body issue. The play used “skin colors” to piece the body image together while it connoted the concept of “skin-deep” to deny the body image. Whenever this kind of art work which shoulders the banner of body nudity appears in Taiwan, the controversy of “consumption in body image” and “uninteresting, ignorant, and tasteless” would arise. What this revealed to us is that, people in society would probably panic as they gently stir up the “body” issue and throw it away hastily.

Back to the anatomy course which we dissected body and analyzed data, what we had in sight were diversified segments dipped in the embalming fluid that intensified the pale and yellowish slices on the surfaces of beings which reflected the inorganic textures with softness and elasticity while the suspended particulate would just annotate the last linkage between the existence and disappearance in a living subject. We people feel the world through senses, but there is no literature on how we reflect upon ourselves to read the body or to listen to the breaking process in a living subject. We reconstructed the body just like reconstruction of the anatomy scene in the medical history, carefully re-brushing the art works with Ge-stell techniques. In the mean time, we observed the “bodily perspectives behind bodies” that those young artists in Taiwan created in the art works, listening to the echoes among different works so as to discuss the disposition operation that command behind those bodies.

Body in “The system of objects”

The bizarre body disposition was presented in the Irrational, Emotional series of Chao Lu-Chia’s art works. Through delicate strokes and rearrangement of specimens, she illustrated to us our possible aspiration for body function in different time and space in the future. This topology in body transcends time and space. The contemporary French philosopher Jean Baudrillard described the importance of modern objects in functions with functional system (objective descriptions) in the book The system of objects. While the functional meaning of the hetereo-orgen to the body lie outside the positions and forms that are described in the anatomy topology. It is futile to embody the context because the unknown functions always surpass our knowledge about the body. Therefore, even we try to describe the body functions with functional features, what we can testify is only the absence of the functional features.

“To me, thoughts are sticky and interrelated with one another,
while all sorts of things in the body are independent units.
They interact with one another as they communicate substances controlled by various nerves.
Sometimes, I feel that the body seems to be mine, and not at the same time.
I managed to create the only sign of organ belongs to the imagination so as to satisfy my thought which I am unable to command in this part.
It may be an accident, a satisfying accident, though.”
Chao Lu-Chia. Irrational, Emotional. 2008

Nonfunctional system (subject description) is the opposite structure of “functional system” —the object which is against the functional system to the extreme—the ancient object and the most rebellious behavior against modern times—the collection. However, ancient objects are merely a historical approach to replace time. The time to collect objects is because the collective activities in the organization replace time. And it is also a basic function in the collection in order to help us to ablate time concept in a system of repeated space dimensions.
(Jean Baudrillard. 2001. p.110.)

“To a natural scientific researcher, it is a necessity to collect abundant specimens to present complete research result. In the early years, scholars proceeded to enlarge specimen collections unceasingly in the comparison research. The fanaticism of gaining reliable statistic data to them built some scientific material collections. In relation to the faith in these series of collections, they attempted to fully understand the organization, operation and interior structures and they observed, described, and categorized the collections as a maneuver.”
Shih Yi-Shan. Zoo 2009

The meta-functional and dysfunctional system (novel gadgets and robots) in the “The system of objects” is the technical extension in “functional system.” It is literally a modern myth—automatism—that the functions of objects are developed to the extreme. Its outcomes are disorder in function and pseudo-function. The development trend could be verified with those meaningless gadgets and gizmos. When the myth is developed to the extreme, it would lead to the massive betrayal of modern objects and human’s self-destruction. This symbolizes that the potential paradox and conflict reaction lay between the real demand of “technology development” and that of “society and human.” This also happened in the works of Zoo. The funny movements that future machine insects made in the exhibition scene, part of the walls that was purposely whitewashed and painted with white lines, “irrational complication, compulsory emphasis on the details, bizarre techniques, meaningless formalism, and the artificial object areas that feature activeness in the poly-para-hyper et meta-fonctionnelle zone, they are a large series of pataphysique which is related to objects that the artist conjured up.”

“There are pigpens everywhere in my neighborhood, so it is a common scene to me. I still remember when I was little, my classmates liked to mock me for the smell emitted from my body. They said to me, “You really stink！” Even though my mother did her household well to rub each uniform I had, they still believed that there were enough awful odors or putrid smell to disintegrate epidermis and its inner contents in me. On the other hand, the swollen cystic would appear to be as transparent as a layer of Japanese rice paper under the sunshine which make all the creatures feel sticky.”
Shih Yi-Shan. The Chemistry of death. 2006

The absence of living people is the perfect alibi to collect corpse. Death is an art of the passing of time. Even though time ablates, memory of the childhood trauma has been a part of the collection, an outcome which cannot be buried with the body. Only through repeating piecing animation in The Chemistry of death can one hold the mourning ritual to devour fallacy along with the trace of trauma by moor scenery, this is true for the smell. The body in physical system tried to collect all the functions to demonstrate, but behind the amazing demonstration, do people actually unceasingly pursue the existence of body functions？Or is it that they just could not conceal the fact that they have the fondness for controlling the body in reality？

Diaspora body

At the time when Miss Chien Yu-Chien studied away from home, she felt feeble facing her self-existence. What she could do was to shoot pictures of her own body parts in the close-up works Untitled to catch the fleeting moment of her existence. With the background of a white cloth from the top, there were close-up photos scattered around the white cloth as well as a pair of white operation gloves. It looked like that a lady was covered with a white bed sheet in the bed feeling agitated to her own body and her nostalgia to her hometown. In the work Nostalgia created by Andrei Tarkovsky, the scenery that was shot with scrutinized long lens appeared to be serene between the lines. It was a journey leaving for a strange place. In the end one shall bid farewell to oneself as he plays an elegy to slowly say good-bye to his mother.

“What I feel the nearest to me, most probably is my own body. So I began to shoot pictures of my own body. Under the scrutiny of my body in those accumulated scenes, I should find out that maybe I myself have never understood the body that I used to believe to be the dearest to myself. Through reviewing the shooting works that I created in the series of the body parts, I was at the same time reviewing my own emotion: fear and pleasure.”
Chien Yu-Chien. Untitled. 2007.

In the work Untitled (30 days) created by Tsai Chang-Lin, one would have uneasy and struggling feeling when visioning the act of stab piercing an apple in and out after its 30 days decay. Diaspora complex begins to brew self-awareness towards colony’s reality, and the decay and sour phenomena occur after the ripe. Gradually one has to greet the ending of decays. It is when colony body begins to break that we shall shake hands with one another so as to create a compromising pseudo-self in the illusion.

“The death makes me feel strange and familiar at the same time. I even end this between unreal and non-imaginary dream. Even though I pierced the so-called nostalgia, I am still baffled living in the uncertainty.”
Tsai Chang-Lin. Untitled (30 days). 2007.

In the work Somewhere Over The Cloud created by director Hsiao Mei-Ling, when we have a close look at the secret note of the family members, we may feel there is a reflection of nostalgia that reechoes in hetereo-languages, hetereotopias, and hetereo-things. From the birth of a daughter to the deceased mother, generation to generation, the departure of the identity recognition appear to us subtly. In the murmuring whispers, no matter we force ourselves to check the body loneliness or sharpen the knife to the apple (the big apple is the metonym for New York) to signify the alienated human relationship. “Where is my home？” is a simple yet difficult question to be answered. Home is where we started, so it is where we belong to. It is a place belongs to us and a place that has us inside. However, “home” is also a “pillory.” Our bodies walk away from home but is it destined that we are in actual walking closer and closer, walking closer, walking, closer……to …

Grotesque Body

“Digital technology creates reality so that it can satisfy the demand of human’s imagination. But which is real in the process of creation and substitution？In the example of print ads media, when models’ photos are edited by digital software, their bodies especially reach a beauty standard that surpasses what the public could imagine. It is a utilization of digital technology to make a real body into an unreal body.”
Chang Ming-Chih. Weirdware II. 2008

In the work Weirdware II created by Chang Ming-Chih, he managed to combine a thin body and a fat body into one body and obscured the body structure. Therefore, the only thing left was an unrecognizable “grotesque” that could not be identified for the gender and shape. This differs from Diane Arbus’s topic “twisted ordinary person” so as to snap on human being’s life. On the contrary, this shows us a new style of “ordinary twisted person” that emphasize the bizarre atmosphere to catch our attention. We can conclude Philip Thomson’s grotesque features in esthetics as follows: disharmony, comic & terrifying, extravagance & exaggeration, satiric & playful. He defined it well enough.

“In the arts and nature, there is no bizarreness/deformity. However, when we do not have enough imagination to have the whole picture in mind, that is, our imagination have reached the limit and we feel hard to describe it, we are then in the unsolved bafflement . The object of bizarreness/deformity destructs the attempt to form a concept. But what make us feel bizarre/deform is not the object, but the bafflement and limitation in the imagination that we have presented.”
(Chu Yuan-Horng. 1999：P.9)

In the works Ineffable Moments series created by Lan Yuan-Hung, the dissociation of the young bodies lain on the beds, Simple and plain beds of desire. The compound variant young bodies were formed by the combination of different gestures on the beds to present the real desires which were virtualized. On the other hand, in the series of Copy & Paste, the artist chose to use different community labels that are in different peoples and ages to piece them together in a single naked model image. He meant to challenge the political correctness in body esthetics identity under the globalization cause.

“I took some pictures in the bedroom and featured the elements with “bed” and “nudity” to create the atmosphere of secret and privacy (along with exposure and disclosure) which contains the motive to demonstrate an inner space. I therefore overlapped several photos taken in the same angle and edited the photos with digital software. The attempt I made was to maintain the elegant beauty in the twisted and deformed bodies. So what appears in front of you is a pieced and seamless intact body shape while the non-human-like body gesture was set to resort to the ambiguity and openness.”
Lan Yuan-Hung. Ineffable Moments. 2008.

“In the process of shooting, there were hidden emotional currents inside my mind. For example, I tried to be free but to encounter instant uneasiness. I also tried to observe the relationship between the observer and the nude (that is, the shooter and the model). As a younger Asian and shooter at the same time (non-native English person), what interested me was that at some moments I accidentally equalized the tension structure simply because I was inferior to the models. That is a major issue that I was not conscious of at that moment (even now I still could not handle), an issue in relation to people/languages/identities/authorities.”
Lan Yuan-Hung. Copy & Paste. 2008.

French contemporary philosopher George Canguilhem understood science development process through “errors” in his work The Normal and Pathological. He was convinced that science creates a new way of “telling us the truth,” and it does not walk us out of shadows or erase our errors to gain the truth. In human’s life and time concept, “errors” do have a dimension and a disruption. They are occasional incidents of eternity in human’s developing history. As a result, it is not like evolution which has time sequence to evolve from the former to the latter. And this dessein error reverses the conventional sense of humor in the value system. It provokes certain nationalists to anger by accident and in fact, it is a reversal and misplacement in essence.

Non-linear Body

The works Simply the Speed, created by Chen Chang-Chih, features the “dance documents” recorded stage photos. In the series of photo works, the dancers moved promptly so the artist can only decide to catch a series of segments in the body movements that those dancers made. As a result, what the spectators have in vision are those white fragments of movements that the dancers made with the parts of their bodies in the action.
I expanded the human’s physical defect of “duration of vision,” through shooting to open another vision, and thanks to the media’s artificial limbs, we can reach the unknown experience which the human physical structures could not do. The object bodies were deformed and became blurred in the profile, but we can still identify those fragments in the pictures simply because we have the concept of the complete forms in mind.

“The awareness experience has been integrated through the artificial limbs of the media. Maybe the anatomy course to dissect the limbs needs no anesthesia to aid. But this would make us realize that we all have artificial limbs without notice at all.”
Chen Chang-Chih. Simply the Speed. 2008.

French philosopher Gilles Louis Réné Deleuze discussed the nonlinear narrative approach about Italy neo-realism in the work Cinema 2: The Time-Image (1989). He edited image products made in different times and after reconstruction he led us to the reality of the images. The eyes pick temporary visions through shutter and that is the practice a cinema in the brain put into. Only when we sense the image in time sequence can we regain the control of the meanings in senses. The feet are no longer feet, and the swinging hands are no longer hands because in the chaos of time, this is a speedy way to write with our bodies if we consent that the futurism in the potential scenery has become a past tense.

The work Ears and Other Body Parts—Roaming(Ears Roaming) created by Yannick Dauby is an extraordinary piece. The work did not occupy the real exhibition spaces, there was a pair of earphones and walkman player instead to accompany the audience in the certain time and the audience can listen to the body parts (blood circulation, inhalation and exhalation by lungs )sounds recorded as they roam around. The audience can also choose to view other visionary works or look at the street scenery outside the exhibition hall at the same time so as to enjoy alternative pleasure with body’s senses in a crossing interaction between inner and outer manners.

“I put my fingers into my ears, while the air resonant was locked without communication to the outside world. I thought I would find serenity for a while, but I was totally wrong. There was a roaring sound caused by my nonstop hands which moved constantly and there was a whistling sound caused, I was sure, by my own blood pressure. At times there was also a crack sound, created by the collision of my hands and arms. As I lay down my elbow on the table, I found a dull sound of bang. I rubbed the wood with my elbow, and I heard the sound made by the table through my bones. Therefore, my arms really became a stethoscope which listened to the sounds of the table.”
Yannick Dauby. Ears and Other Body Parts—Roaming. 2009.

Sounds are a series of existing signals of time. How shall we sense the existence of the body subject by surmounting the barrier to listen to the inner sounds of the body? Until isolated from the outside objects, the silent sounds in the last part of the “Ears Roaming” is merely the last proclamation to against the body phenomena to expel the original liner structure, and to seek the subject meanings again in the non-linear body.

Religious body

All the religions have the unique combination such as selfless dedication versus obsessive pursuit, obedience versus rebellion, and directness of senses versus spiritual abstraction. --Georg Simmel

In the work Decapitation III, 2009 created by Cheng Yu-Hsiang, the ritual held in the guillotine stage was established to control the authoritative-oriented dazzling scene as the audience come inside. Under the dazzling lights when the audience step in and see the Jesus Christ crucified on the cross, deceased Marat, and those pictures without heads, they would feel gloomy with the advent of sadness and would lose the divinity inside themselves. As they watch the incompleteness of the bodies, they, the onlookers, absorb the memory of those suffering bodies by introjection. This is a cunning scheme of re-execution, only this time the executed are collective unconsciousness, moral machine, and historical crimes.

“The apparatus of the art work is to reflect upon the unique imagination in crimes. Therefore, the unique body gestures in the works became an odd key of mimic and representation of the history. The works, being the existing history itself, originally came from the concept of sparkling flash of instant suffering. In the history, the certain executed body with unique pain has been extended to the history process so the suffering of chopped head of the single body has become the execution of collective unconsciousness. The moment of execution refers not only to the violent formation in all the political social relationship, but it also builds a conventional historical perspective viewed by the contemporary society in the future.”
Cheng Yu-Hsiang. Decapitation III, 2009. 2009.

The formation of Dharma was immersed in the world phenomena of liquid and air. In an impermanent instant moment for the beings, we sigh that the truth is hard to come by. All of a sudden, all are not but illusion in epiphany. All sorts of dharma are no more than emptiness of self. In the void world we all search for a piece of quiet land in mind. There comes a chant of Sanskrit floating in the air afar to lead all the souls to ascend, as Sakyamuni Buddha taught us, “All phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow, like dew and lightning, thus should you meditate upon them.”

“Before the golden pigment filled up the Buddha statue, we could see the Buddha-like and non-Buddha-like image at the same time. After complete presentation of the Buddha statue, the work Void connotes the Zen atmosphere in this kind of process. The projection of these two films which denote inner and outside worlds face to face symbolizes a state of reflection. Inner worlds echo the outside phenomena so the outside reflects what is inside. Two projections weave to form the Buddha image……”
Chang Ming-Chih. Void. 2008.

Conclusion

Body, a concrete interface with surface features, collects life philosophy and mind essence. What imagination would we have in mind in relation to body？From a micro perspective to macro perspective to view the contemporary body issue in the medical arts this time, what solution on earth do we attempt to gain to satisfy our demand？Cutting open the wrinkled skin, what we get is a silent bearing, a lie to survive or a wise disguise？

References

Jean Baudrillard, The system of objects, (Shang-hai jen-min), 2001.
George Canguilhem. The Normal and the Pathological. trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett & Robert S. Cohen (New York: Zone Books), 1991.
Georg Simmel, Sociology of Religion , (Shang-hai jen-min), 2003.
Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, Methuen Critical Idiom Series, 1972.
朱元鴻 〈她讓自己丟人現眼！__大學性詭態與美學判斷再探〉，「第四屆四性研討會」，中央性／別研究室，1999。