Ghostly Bodies

Absent and yet present. The human body is the focus of the two exhibited works by Susan Morris and Berenice Olmedo, even if only traces of it are recognisable. Formally very different, the works have one thing in common: they construct bodies through technical extensions.

Susan Morris (b. 1962, UK) combines modern technology, the recording of time and the documentation of movement. The British artist has been working for several decades with digital tracking devices such as Acti-Watches, which she wears on her body to record her daily routine or seemingly repetitive gestures. Her aim is to produce new body images. The data for the work shown in the exhibition “Motion Capture Drawing (ERSD): View From Above” were recorded in a motion capture studio, where Morris’ body was fitted with six reflectors on her hands, head and back. Over the course of two days, these recorded and stored each of her movements as she made a drawing. Susan Morris transferred the digital data set of 3D coordinates into two dimensions – in a series of side views, front views and top views, the latter of which can be seen in the exhibition. The recorded movements appear as cloud-like images, as a thin network of white lines against a dense black background. Each “movement diagram” is produced as a large-format inkjet print, whereby only the black is actually printed on it, while the white of the lines remains unprinted negative space. The almost dance-like rhythm that the body movements and habitual gestures leave behind in the image makes us realise that even everyday activities have their own logic and can be captured as a digital trace.

Mexican sculptor Berenice Olmedo (b. 1987, MEX) has long focussed her attention on damaged, marked bodies and on people who are pushed to the margins of society due to physical flaws. In doing so, she persistently questions physical “normality” and the often relentless social standards that determine perfect body images. Her translucent plastic casts are modelled on orthoses or prostheses, mechanical aids intended to compensate for mutilations or correct poor posture. Olmedo's sculptures hang in space by a thin thread, seemingly weightless, embracing an invisible fate that touches us directly and creates a personal closeness to an unknown person. Some of the models for her sculptures come from medical or rehabilitation archives, where casts of prostheses of disabled people are kept. “Regina”, the title of the exhibited work, shows a child's prosthesis in cheerful pastel colours with locking straps and mechanical joints. By specifically naming the person for whom the prosthesis was originally intended, Olmedo individualises the technical device and lends it a poetic and graceful touch through artistic intervention, which is further emphasised by the ballet shoes that remain in pointe work. With her sculptures, Olmedo creates a strong counterpoint to the supposedly “normal” independence of the body and emphasises the extent to which we are dependent on technical enhancements and readily accept them in digital form as implanted chips, electronic tattoos or high-tech suits with actuators to create the illusion of tactile sensations. However, prostheses to compensate for physical disability are still a social taboo. But just how dependent we are on such technical aids, especially in times of escalating wars and violence, is shown by the increasing number of soldiers maimed in battle.