SKIN: Neuroqueer entanglement

BACKGROUND This work engaged with various fields of research and contexts: (1) moving image work on a large public screen; (2) photographic work designed to engage with specific technological affordances ; and (3) presentation of queer and disability experience in art. The aim of this project was to resolve these contexts in a work that explored the affordances of the Fed Square screen and foregrounded neuroqueer identity experience. Through images of tattoos on skin, the work considered the neuroqueer experience of entangled embodiment - the sense of the body merging with the environment. Presenting images of the surface of the skin wrapped around a building was an expression of this entanglement. CONTRIBUTION SKIN was specifically designed to respond to the shape of the digital facade and addressed the specific context of Fed Square. The work transformed the screen wrapped building into a body in the square, rather than a portal or a billboard. It successfully demonstrated the conflation of body, building and screen. SKIN featured a soundscape by indigenous neuroqueer artist Diimpa. Points of departure for this project included the question posed by philosopher Donna Haraway in her 1991 Cyborg Manifesto: “Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin?” and Pallasmaa’s 1996 Eyes of the Skin that explored embodied experiences of architecture. SIGNIFICANCE The work was commissioned by the Melbourne Fringe Festival with funding from Creative Victoria Pride program and Lesbians Incorporated. The work was exhibited on the high-profile Digital Facade in Federation Square 12-29 September 2019. The work was subsequently included in Epicentre at Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània, València, an exhibition curated by systaime & David Quiles Guilló as part of Wrong New Digital Art Biennial, opening 1 November 2019. Bennett and Diimpa were interviewed for the 3CR QR Code podcast and an interview with Fareed Kaviani is forthcoming.