I just wanted to share this piece of text by Terry Park on artist Michael Joo's work Salt Transfer Cycle, 1994. I watched an excerpt of this video work recently and though the video shows Joo's body journeying through many situations I found this text more engaging and visceral, which made it easier for me to enter into the work. This reminds me how we can sometimes be numb to images and their intensities and how effectively text can impart embodied experiences.
He is naked. He swims. But not in water. He swims in a glass case of monosodium glutamate. MSG. He breathes heavily. Rhythmically. His toned arms sweep repeatedly through the white substance, making butter- fly wings in the dust. His long black hair drapes his moist back. The MSG chafes his skin; he bleeds from thousands of tiny cuts. He sweats, and the sweat mixes with the blood mixing with the salt. He swims faster, but he does not go anywhere. He swims in place. The faster he swims, the more he sweats and bleeds, sweats and bleeds.
He is naked. He is now lying face down on a desert floor. The floor is not a sandy yellow, but an alabaster white. He lies on a white plain made out of salt. He licks the ground. Tastes the salt. The crystals prick his tongue. Blood. He crawls, arms and legs wriggling, chest and pelvis gyrating against the salty ground. The salt clings to his body, cuts his body. He slowly rises up and walks, back hunched over, then jogs. Runs. Sweat, blood, and salt trickle off hair, tongue, and flesh, sprinkling his dark shadow and the white ground. His body is now covered in salt. As he runs, the salt penetrates the cuts in the soles of his bare feet. He runs toward low mountains in the fading horizon.
He is naked. He is now in the mountains. But these are not desert mountains. There are tall pine trees, thick with green. The air is cool. He hears birds chirping. He sits on the ground, leaning against a large rock. Thick flakes of salt plaster his face and body. He looks like a ghost, quiet and still. In the distance, there is movement. He is not alone. He is cautiously approached by a group of wild elk. He does not move. They stop. One elk comes forward. It gingerly sniffs him. Then licks. Slowly. Then hungrily. Licks the salt, sweat, and blood from his body. He feels its warm, wet, rubbery tongue lather his body. Eventually the salt is gone. The elk leaves. He is alone again. He breathes heavily. Anxiously. His chest heaves. Suddenly he stands up, leaps into the air, and lands in a vat of MSG. He has (eternally) returned.
He is naked. He is now lying face down on a desert floor. The floor is not a sandy yellow, but an alabaster white. He lies on a white plain made out of salt. He licks the ground. Tastes the salt. The crystals prick his tongue. Blood. He crawls, arms and legs wriggling, chest and pelvis gyrating against the salty ground. The salt clings to his body, cuts his body. He slowly rises up and walks, back hunched over, then jogs. Runs. Sweat, blood, and salt trickle off hair, tongue, and flesh, sprinkling his dark shadow and the white ground. His body is now covered in salt. As he runs, the salt penetrates the cuts in the soles of his bare feet. He runs toward low mountains in the fading horizon.
He is naked. He is now in the mountains. But these are not desert mountains. There are tall pine trees, thick with green. The air is cool. He hears birds chirping. He sits on the ground, leaning against a large rock. Thick flakes of salt plaster his face and body. He looks like a ghost, quiet and still. In the distance, there is movement. He is not alone. He is cautiously approached by a group of wild elk. He does not move. They stop. One elk comes forward. It gingerly sniffs him. Then licks. Slowly. Then hungrily. Licks the salt, sweat, and blood from his body. He feels its warm, wet, rubbery tongue lather his body. Eventually the salt is gone. The elk leaves. He is alone again. He breathes heavily. Anxiously. His chest heaves. Suddenly he stands up, leaps into the air, and lands in a vat of MSG. He has (eternally) returned.