The Chair Practice
Site-Specific Performance, Digital Graphic,
Performance Video, 48’24’’ (Three parts: A Cigarette of Time, A Permanent Waiting, A Strange Land)
The Chair Practice is an image diary documenting the interrelationship among body, chair and land around Los Angeles.
Growing up in Taipei city to now living in Los Angeles, sometimes I found myself feeling uncomfortable in its landscape, especially an empty and open space, such as park, train station, plaza, parking lot etc. This is my first time understand that, being alien is not only a psychological feeling but could also be physical.
In The Chair Practice, I reimagine the relationship between my body and the land. Using the body as a sculpting tool, I forced myself perform a simple task: 'sitting on a chair' in the public space around LA for nearly 2 months, more than 20 locations. From open space such as public park, hiking trail and beach to more urban setting, like fire lane, shopping plaza, I documented my movement in video, then analyzed it through graphic drawings.
Through the continuous practice, it shows the adaptation of the physicality and further develops my body memory with this foreign land.
1st Practice- photography studio
8th Practice- bridge
10th Practice- Newhall train station
12th Practice- LA Chinatown
Study i- Contact Sheet
I documented each practice with video. After the practice, I then studied the video and screenshot each pose. Some practice was longer, some was shorter. I usually won't stop my practice unless I can't come out with any new pose on the site.
Study ii- Body Chair Topography
Using the contact sheet, I trace my body and the chair in each practice and created the Body Chair Topography.
Study iii- Body Chair Landscape
I composed the body typography with the element on the site, such as window, structure of the bridge or building, the shape of the highway. Those surrounded elements inspired my body movement.
Performance Film (excerpt)