safe&repeat

Repetition is a natural human phenomenon that happens throughout an economic, political, social and cultural spectrum and it is often used as a tool to process information and to make meaning over what we cannot understand, specifically after a traumatic response. The body reflects on this trauma through a complex and dynamic process whose knowledge is both embodied physically and virtually due to the current status of the body as a post-biological being. The work invites to critically explore these two topics as entangled to one another through the following question:

how does the body operate and make meaning through repetition on the web?

To have some clarity for this research, I embarked in a journey where I investigated the telepistemological position of the post-biological body: Firstly, on an individual level and later on a collective one. My methodological framework focused on auto-ethnographic research; where the importance of bodily affect became key for my process-based experiment. The process started by performing repetition on a textual and sonic level; for a period of three months, once a week, I repeated on a notepad “I am safe”, the performance was ongoing until my body’s mental and physical capacity were maxed out and I couldn’t continue the process anymore. The maximized body capacity that I was able to achieve was one hour. As to measure the body’s response, my heart rate was monitored and measured as to give out a “medical” identification of the experiment. Journaling the process was also presented as to identify the physical and emotional results of such a task. The heart monitoring stopped as I did not believe that it was bringing valid results and I focused more on the journaling that can eventually identify a form of storytelling narrative of the experiment.

Additionally, there is an understanding that bodies are generally different in their socio-economic position, as to measure the process of many post-biological bodies, the process was later experienced with a group of four people through a video-conferencing meeting for two hours and 20 minutes. The participants partook in the same journey and they were asked to choose to repeat “I am still safe” in whatever language they are more comfortable with. This collaborative repetition was experimented through 3 forms: Textual (silent), auditory (sonic) and eventually a combination of both. After each repetition they had to journal their experience. Part of my journaling and theirs was combined with an Ai system that generates texts from pre-existing data on the web. The results were a mixture of absurd poetic storytelling of our networked intimacies with the process of repetition. By the end of the meeting we had a conversation and reflections over the question of how does the body operate and make meaning through repetition on the web? While the piece might seem repetitive, and tasking, it investigates our own behavioral actions on the web and its link to a voyeuristic fascination that comes with web navigation.