Self-Portrait 1
The body is the final boundary of existing space, and is sometimes also the place where the media world and the pulse of biology encounter each other. Today this realm of lifes mysteries has achieved an unprecedented degree of connection due to technologys ability to link what is internal and external.
I want to cause the physicality of the body to disappear in an interlinked system of visual imagery. I have therefore filmed video images of the body, and projected them in an extremely enlarged form. Using the images to guide me, the projected form of my naked body slowly portrays the inner digestive apparatus of the body.
From when foreign objects enter the body to the time they are excreted, the digestive tract is actually a breeding ground for an individuals complex moods: swollen satisfaction, the suffering of anxiety. Those true translated situations have a virtual flavour that can neither be ignored nor overemphasized. I have probed the bodys sensitive synapses. The delivery of privacy and surrender of control to others (self) in fact reveals a chilly texture. This texture reflects how contemporary people are caught at the unstable, fluid boundary between self and reality, truth and imagination, and existence and delusion. It has become a true bodily system that presages and connects.
Hsu Su-chen lives and works in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She trained as a medical technician and worked as a medical examiner at Dept. of Clinical Pathology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung, until 1994. She went on to gain an MFA and now is a freelance artist and independent curator. She has had 3 solo exhibitions in Taiwan and 45 international group exhibitions and performances, most recently Media in f and The 3rd Womens Art Festival: Fantastic Asia in Seoul, Korea.