performance with a bootleg Ken doll and modular paper foldings accompanied by a looping track of Yoko Shimomura and Shota Nakama's Cosmogony, Gentiana's theme for Square Enix's Final Fantasy XV, 45 minutes.
performed at Mox, Katong Point, Singapore for Performance Art Resource Orchestrator, curated by Yuzuru Maeda and Chand Chandramohan, 2018.
photo documentation by Aziz Amri and Riko Takahashi.
Ahhh, the face you wore the day you --- frost silences memories as they slowly thaw themselves back into existence.
The performance is presented under a huge modular paper installation, accompanied by a bootleg toy figure. With the toy's head in his mouth and its hand extending one of the performer's fingers, he will repeat a single action: shush gesture, proposing on whom exactly he is silencing, himself, the bootleg Ken doll or the audience. He also periodically moves, almost dance-like within the installation, accompanied by a looping soundtrack of Square Enix's Final Fantasy XV as a homage to Gentiana, a character whom this work is inspired by. The toy accompanying him mirrors his costume, almost like a miniature doppelgänger standing idly, to be either mildly recognized or simply ignored.
Within social context, the video game-influenced narrative performance is a romanticiZed plea towards the numbing constructions upon masculine identities, self-inflicted or otherwise.