World, Membrane and the Dismembered Body
"World, Membrane and the Dismembered Body" (1998) is an installation by Seiko Mikami.
World, Membrane and the Dismembered Body
In an echoless room a computer and various measuring devices are used to amplify the sound of a body's internal organs. In the silence, the visitor first hears the sounds inside his or her body, and then the amplified versions from audio speakers. A computer uses the bodysounds to form a 3D-polygon mesh, expressing sounds in the anechoic room. The lack of an echo and light makes hearing the primary perception. The visitor becomes just a giant ear with almost no control over his body and heartbeat. When the body's heartbeat is thrown off course by an intervention from the outside, the desire arises to try to control the sounds that the body emits. A gap occurs between this event and the resulting desire. In this way the visitor feels that a part of his corporeality is under erasure. He/she is made conscious of the disappearance of the physical contours of his subjectivity and thereby experiences being turned into a fragmented body.
