Buddha Hand Lemon (Citron) and Young Girl in Los Angeles

…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.