I’m interested in exploring the subject surrounding the polymorphic nature within the human consciousness condition through my art practice involving new media, software programs, and the computer interface. What is the meaning of “polymorphic” when paired with the term “consciousness?” Thomas Naickomparambil, professor of philosophy defines it as such:

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…our consciousness is not governed by strictly intellectual concerns most of the time. This is due to the fact that the human conscious is polymorphic in nature. Etymologically the term “polymorphism” is derived from the two Greek words polus (many) and morphe (form). Consequently, the expression “polymorphism of human consciousness” signifies the (many forms) of human consciousness. The different patterns of consciousness often do not have clear-cut and fixed boundaries. They can overlap, mix, conflict and interfere with each other.¹

For instance, when using the medium of video editing or 3D animation software, I am aware of my presence in front of a computer as well as the disembodied perception of being embodied within the machine while manipulating and moving an object around in its environment. Perhaps using new media and in particular, the computer as an implement in art making allows for new possibilities representing the polymorphic nature of consciousness also resembling the critical theory of post-humanism – an “embodied medium through which critical consciousness is manifested.”²  In other words, a non-physical manifestation of self or a machine-based narrativized, textualized version of a human. Additionally, it is as if symbolically post-human principals found in new media has given demise to my use of the paintbrush, which can be perceived as a metaphor for (Renaissance) humanism. In the book, ‘The Posthuman Condition Consciousness Beyond the Brain,’ artist and academic writer, Robert Pepperell eloquently puts it, that from the beginning of our existence we have attempted to “extend our physical abilities with tools […] Where (Renaissance) humanists saw themselves as distinct beings in an antagonistic relationship with their surroundings, post-humans regard their own being as embodied in the extended technological world.”³

In the video and sculpture installation piece titled, ‘Buddha Hand Lemon (Citron) and Young Girl in Los Angeles,’ I’m investigating the notion of an immersive embodied space driven by an electronically mediated environment. I ask that the work, representing a vivid dreamlike memory, not take itself too seriously to allow room for critical distance, noting in the discourse of immersive aesthetics that illusory reality is subjugated by its opposite nature by being inherently artificial. Much like the city of Los Angeles, which appears as a lush paradise when in actuality it is a desert. In past works, my concerns have often related to a sense of cultural identity, which develops across race, class, gender and cultural disposition. I’m absorbed not solely in the occurrence of polymorphic consciousness, but the luminal negotiation in between these identities where other potentials may emerge.

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It’s complicated to unravel questions surrounding how persons in the sex trade are viewed and how they may view themselves in terms of commodity. There’s a simple transactional agreement and setup in a “live” Peep Show where a voyeur is drawn into a booth after purchasing to gaze upon the nude person inside. In the installation PEEPSHOW, the staging is balanced, and the voyeur who has “paid” for the power and privilege of the gaze becomes watched simultaneously by the subject of desire inside the booth, altering the gaze into one that is shared.

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The theatre dressing and drapes in the installation, produced with screen print on flat cloth appear to recede into folds yet they do not penetrate the surface acknowledging that the sex worker is gazed upon, but not physically encountered. The illusion of the “folds” moreover proposes mysteries “not seen or known” in the undercurrent of the sex industry, the erotic urging of the voyeur, and the narrative behind the sex worker.

Author and visual art-textile lecturer, Pennina Barnett best conveys the multidimensional comparison of cloth as a metaphor while exploring subjectivity in culture and identity, she writes: “The poetics of cloth are composed of folds, fragments and surfaces of infinite complexity […] the surface is a liminal space both inside and out, a space of encounter.¹

On another note, PEEPSHOW bears witness to our cultural fixation on female breasts, the 3D animation inside the booth attempts to re-establish and retrieve a part of oneself lost in childhood – to perhaps seek a sense of “wholeness.” It’s within this context the eyes on the breast represent “the gaze” which goes both ways, such as an infant staring unwaveringly from beginning to the end at a mother’s face during breastfeeding as she peers back.

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