Off the Face of the Earth

Off the Face of the Earth is a record of my attempt at disappearance. Standing in front of a fixed camera with a singular light source at night, I walked backwards to gradually lose illumination until my central figure recedes from view.

This calculated set-up and slow distancing achieve a physical illusion of fading away into darkness. The act of vanishing, with its multilayered meanings in dissociation, utter irrationality, and death, aptly captures my desire to escape from our increasingly alien world.

This work is part of an ongoing series of instruction-based body-camera experiments at self-effacement, loosely exploring the philosophical question "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Presented at SOTA Art Gallery as part of Another (Im)possibility (2022), with curatorial mentorship by Louis Ho; and the 23rd iteration of Online Performance Art Festival (2022), organised by Sandra Božić.