Island (1978)
There are islands between people.
I want to visit that island.
Hyun-Chong Jung
In Asian society, based on the Confucian culture in which I grew up, there is a strongly present norm that regards the masking of one's personality upon a first meeting as a virtue. In other words, when meeting new people, there’s an underlying social mood that prompts them to first think about what other people will think of them. For this reason, people tend to take on a certain persona called “politeness” during their first meeting.
I would feel frustrated by the social distance/buffer that this social norm brings, and I even felt curious about how we can communicate beyond this social barrier. My curiosity brought me to design a simple social choreographic game of how people can communicate non-verbally and intuitively, beyond social norms and moods, to remain true to themselves.
1. Participants will get an “invitation card,” containing simple rules, before the start of the game.
2. Each invitation card has a different coloured dot in it, which indicates the colour of the player.
3. Dots are projected on the floor in a dark and wide space, from which coloured lines grow out very smoothly and gently from each dot.
4. At certain pauses, each person has to embrace the other people in the dots which overlap with theirs.
Various geometries of iterations are available according to the number of participants and the stage.
Collaboration with Mengfei Wang