‘Bookface’ is a performance and installation artwork which collapses the boundaries between book arts and performance so as to formulate a hybrid space. It is a contemplation on the notion of a collective narcissism fervent in contemporary society in both virtual and physical environments. Through the rise of platforms such as Facebook, subjectivity has become a multiplicity of perceptions, with the internet and social media as an arena for formulating alter egos and distorted impressions of our identities. This work stages an event as a subtraction and formalisation to certain phenomena of the modern gaze. It explores the trauma and beauty of the digital domain, and it´s multiplicity of narratives depicting identity, mortality, loss and love. ‘Bookface’ seeks to illustrate the displacement and the continual deferred replacement from the church to the internet and our search for meaning through the collective body. Through the use of anamorphic selfie masks in book form, it seeks to illustrate our appropriation of the internet as a way of absurdly masking one's true identity.
Performance 04 Oct 7:30 pm Fünf Masken Statt Einer
with Yan Gi Cheng, Honi Ryan, Yuko Ishida, Jwana Ribeiro da Silva, Dmitry Povernov