Video, 4:08 min
Between acceptance and aggression, ASM (abdominal self massage) examines pain as an indicator of biopolitical abuse of power.
An oil infused with black printer’s ink is massaged into the skin of the abdomen around the navel. An electrically charged voice interrogates the relationship between subject and regulatory inscriptions of power. The abdominal cavity, as a site of digestion, becomes a stage for a feeling of being consumed. That which is touched and deformed simultaneously touches and forms.
The predominantly rapid cuts destabilise the macroscopic proximity established through the artist-performer’s own camera work. Instead of producing a sense of relief, they give rise to a forceful upheaval: an acknowledgement of the symptomatic and an affirmation of somatic capacity to speak.
Forbidden Fruit
Salty Acid, Berlin (River Spree)
2026
Photographs by © Yiy Zhang