Decodification Of The Body (2021)

This project is the outcome of a collective discussion between Farhad Bahram, Brian Gillis, and Chelsea Thompto; a collaborative team that investigates issues of identity, perception, cultural alterity, and social affect. Working across disciplines and through technology, they live and work in separate locations in the USA.

Decodification of the Body centers the use of contemporary and emerging technologies to transform the determined correlation between the object of the body and its subjective reflection. These three artists, a trans woman, a Jewish man, and a Muslim man, explore the possibilities for decodifying the self as a subjective mechanism that is shaped by a series of immediate struggles, both in and outside of the body, which eventually presents the inability of the self to fully express its rightful image to others. Decodification of the Body portrays a similar arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended schema of the self and the unintentionally expressed image of it through a conglomeration of first and third-person expressions of identity, which may or may not be tied to a physical body, socio-cultural context, and/or the impact of perceptual biases of individuals and groups. By providing windows into lived, implied, and perceived experience, this project offers the opportunity for one body to consider the limits of its own knowledge about others and scales for appraising the body as an unplanned realization that is not fixed or predetermined by its nature.

The virtual body you inhabit in https://decodification-of-body.glitch.me/ can be moved through the space by using W (forward), Z (backward), A (left), and S (right), or directional arrows on your keyboard, and your mouse or trackpad can be used to look around, in order to access testimonials about the lived experiences and identity of others. The following video is an instructional primer intended to provide access, orientation, and a preliminary introduction to the non-linear, experiential space that is this project. One can access this space directly by linking to this VR environment on Glitch.