Looking at distance/ detachment and its’ relationship to forming & defining identities of Self and Other, humic moods delves into the idea of points of view of detachment and ideological disembodiment in relation to the early foundations of botany and natural history, which often relied on accounts and descriptions many times removed from empirical experience. The discarded data of the sensory and the subjective composts like detritus on the forest floor. This composted, rotting and fertile humus is the starting point for the series of three videos with accompanying text.
Drawing on detachment as a vehicle of dissociation and disembodiment, the video works layer a variety of references both sonically and visually, looking at imaginations and observations as well as alluding to the constant alteration and reconstruction of memory as it is written and overwritten. As in lucid dreaming, they are punctuated/ counterpointed/ disturbed with textural infiltrations- literary quotes and poetic texts- interspersing the narrative with sensory impressions.
The text that appears, cross-laced with the sonic narratives in the video, is taken from Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness. These are the last utterances of Kurtz, its extractive and fanatical primary antagonist, in order of appearance:
“Of course you must take care of the motives- right motives- always.”
“Close the shutter.”
“I can’t bear to look at this.”
“Oh, but I will wring your heart yet!”
“Live rightly, die, die…for the furthering of my ideas. It’s a duty.”
“I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.”
“The horror! The horror!”
Weixin Quek Chong works with image, object, audiovisual and at times performative elements to play with perception and senses. She received her MA from the Royal College of Art (London) in 2014 and her BA(Hons) from LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore), working between Madrid, Singapore and London. Weixin has presented projects in Singapore, London, Seoul, Santiago, Yogyakarta, Taipei and Brussels among other cities and is an alumni of artist residencies in the Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art (Korea), NTU-Center for Contemporary Art (Singapore) and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo-Molten Capital Foundation (Santiago, Chile).
