Artwork title : Quit It

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Inspired by my recent experience. I realized again that I still had not been able to accept that idea and I still had the desire of filling the gap and controlling the situation. Influenced by Lacan’s theory about self and other, I feel that I still cannot let go of the desire of a unity, a non-differentiation, a non-separation, a merging with others. But the lack, or absence, the disconnection is the condition to become a functional being. The inability to accept the separation between self and other makes me functionless. I’m attached to other. When the other is gone, the attachment is cut or blocked but I still cannot accept the disconnection. My mind cannot be attached to my own body. My body becomes functionless on its own. It is misplaced or out of place. There is constant longing for other or unity. There is the desire of getting somewhere and the futility of meaningless attempts of erasing separation, otherness, boundary, space, or gap. I want to reach or connect something that cannot be reached or connected.

The inability to accept the absence makes me think of trying to sit on a chair that does not exist, put things on a table that does not exist, and hang things on a hook that does not exist. I find that the three objects are all designed to support. The absence shows a loss of support and the repetition of the attempts only to fall can suggest the situation where I am unable to accept the separation. The visual of falling is inspired by Mona Hatoum’s Under Siege. The effect of absence is also influenced by Jennifer Doyle’s writing about Franko B’s I Miss You! in Hold It Against Me. “In walking down the aisle alone, Franko B performs a union with an absence, for an audience. In this sense, the performance locates itself in the agonistics of the melodramatic conclusion as one attempts to absorb loss, the gap between what one wants and what one has.” The connection with the other is a mediation to feel my existence while I seem not able to differentiate the mediation and my actual existence. It makes me think of the camera is also a mediation to see oneself. It suddenly reminds of the illusion that cameras can cause, which is like the illusion of the complete unity other may provide self. I have the idea of creating the illusion of sitting on a chair, putting a cup on a table and hanging clothes on a rack while everything actually falls but I still keep trying because I cannot accept the fact of the unavoidable separation between self and other.