2012-2015
Beyond Posture and Gesture: The Non-Space of Human Presence
During my master’s studies, my artistic exploration centered on the act of seeing—not just looking, but truly seeing into something. To realize this way of seeing, I chose the subway carriage as my setting, using the concepts of stripping and revealing to expose the essence of human existence.
In this project, I applied anatomical knowledge to “strip” the passengers in the subway, removing their clothing and external identities, depicting them as bare figures in an otherwise ordinary train carriage. This act was not about exposing the individual but about redefining the way we perceive people. In public spaces, individuals construct their social presence through clothing, posture, and behavioural norms. These layers act as protective shells, embedding people within the symbolic structures of society. By removing these external elements through art, I sought to reveal the fundamental state of human existence—beyond appearances, beyond identity, laid bare in a shared space.
show moreMy artistic approach is deeply influenced by Martin Heidegger’s existential philosophy, particularly his concept of Dasein (Being-there). Heidegger argues that human existence is not passive; rather, it is shaped through engagement with the world. Being is not a fixed essence but an open and unfolding process. In this work, I attempt to explore this openness by removing societal markers and allowing individuals to appear not as roles, but as pure existence.
Moreover, in Being and Time, Heidegger emphasises that the “world” is not merely a static, objective background but an intertwined field of meaning, co-constructed through human presence. A subway carriage, though mundane and enclosed, is a microcosm of this world—it carries bodies, dictates behaviours, and shapes the way we interact. In this space, people naturally avoid eye contact, immersing themselves in their phones or staring at advertisements, maintaining a carefully calibrated distance from strangers. However, when the “clothing”—this societal armour—is conceptually removed, the passengers remain in the same space, yet our way of perceiving them is altered. Their bodies are no longer just objects of concealment but become fluid existences within the passage of time and space.
This shift in how we see is not just a reconsideration of human presence, but a critique of the act of seeing itself. Are we conditioned to recognise people only through the symbols society assigns them, while failing to acknowledge their deeper existence? In an age of information overload and hyper-reproduced images, have we lost the ability to truly “see”?
Ultimately, this work is not merely an anatomical dissection of the body, but a dissection of vision itself. These bare figures are not an invasion of privacy but an attempt to restore the fundamental act of seeing. When all external labels are stripped away, can we still recognise the essence of human existence with an unfiltered gaze?
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