Chang Chen Shen-The Incarnation Project: Anatomical Theatre

With the concept of medieval anatomical theatre as the background, the audience is guided to imagine the issues of life, original desire, absurdity, pain and death, etc., and to participate in improvisational performances and the intellectualisation of anatomical theatre to discuss the meaning of life, human body transformation, bodily taboos and domination, etc., and to consider the possibilities of future performance aesthetics. The exhibition is a video, installation and performance site, with impromptu participation of several performers and acoustic performances.

“Anatomical Theatre” is a participatory and collaborative exhibition that uses theatre-style scenes and cross-disciplinary exchanges with people from different cultures, attempting to explore the local BDSM sub-cultural phenomenon in Taiwan, and to observe the potential aesthetics and possibilities of how much social relations can occur in the public art space for this kind of fad introduced to the people. In addition to appropriating the absurd anatomical theater form of the Middle Ages, this project also draws on the exploration of food and the body in Japanese human body food culture. Under the context of social mechanism and subculture, we use creation and data collection to reflect on the multiple identities of the body in performance or action art, and how we should visually view the participatory body works.