90×200

90×200 is an installation that dramatizes the emotions of frustration, anxiety, and delirium through mechanical movements. The work is inspired by the artist’s own experience of being bedridden because of a serious infection. It stages the internal state of push-and-pull with a ghost body accompanied by stale and repetitive machine noises, signaling a symbolic sickness of contemporary living by automation.

The title 90×200 not only describes the dimensions of a single bed, but also evokes the idea of pixelation. As one’s perspective is increasingly commanded by screen pixels, the body is becoming a secondary point of reference to the external world. The work plays out as a crude mechanical resolution, pointing to a possible future which the human body disappears while machinery performs the lingering visceral and psychological residues for eternity.

The work poses three episodes of engagement. One, the viewer is confronted by the motorized choreography as the mattress breathes and the sheets tear; the work inhales into a possible breakdown and then exhales back to inconclusiveness. Two, the audience is faced with his/her own projection of being propped and moved by the bed parts, the motors working the audience through an ambiguous forecast of pain and pleasure. Three, the audience is left wondering the possible outcomes after disengaging from the work: Will the performance outlasts the exhibition? Or will the parts wear themselves out to an unfulfilled promise?

Website: http://rexytseng.com/

2018-2019 / Installation / 90 x 200 x 60 cm
Cloth, metal, wood, bodily fluids, and electronics

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