nervous bodies, 2014, HD video projection, termites, bick pen lines
nervous bodies was a site-specific installation, projected onto the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, TX for Aurora: Light of Convergence done in collaboration with Melissa Tran.
nervous bodies is a proposed video projection that explores the physical, sensorial, and metaphorical intersection of two improbable bodies. In this piece, a human body converges with a colony of ants. The ants physically traverse the body that acts as a landscape, following ink lines that are drawn directly onto the body as a representation of a schematic of the human central nervous system. Because of the ants’ innate pheromone communication method, the ants are collectively and instinctually driven to follow the newly introduced smell produced by the pen and ink -- a basic human communication tool that is being used to confuse the ants existing social structures. Just as the ants are manipulated, they are also maneuvering the body and its sensations. Existing within this forced relationship between human and ants is an underlying level of trust that is already established within the colony of ants. The collective body of the colony mimics the interactions of the individual human body acting within society. As the human body and the body of ants are projected onto the building, the sense of belonging and placement within the larger community is highlighted. Nervous Bodies serves as a metaphor of the assumed roles, manipulated navigations, and sense-based experiences of collective beings.
