Dominique Paul: Migrations of the Arthropods

2012, 5 min. 22 sec. 

"We live in a period of transformation, as the climate is changing we relate to others and get access to information increasingly via screens, our windows onto the world, which are altering our sense of reality. I transform myself with light and explore new mythologies and rituals as I relate to environments, bringing together and building elements that usually do not enter in contact. During a residency with the LMCC, I had a studio on Governors Island with a fabulous view on the Lower Manhattan skyline. Looking everyday at the office towers, I started making myself a city body suit, a hybrid between a diving suit and a space suit, made mainly from recycled egg containers, which individually looked much like a city tower. My body imitates a building that could be lit at night and stand out alone.

I have built a dress with plastic bottles that allows me to float in an upright position, such that if the water level rises I am ready to float and enter the water. I tried the dress in the water under the Manhattan bridge. I was also inspired by the shape of insects, their shell which allows them to float and the fact that they will thrive with climate change: would the human species gain from emulating insects? In a reversal of Kafka's Metamorphosis, to imitate the insect life form would be a way to help us adapt to a changing climatic environment rather than the tragedy that it was in Kafka's novel."

Dominique Paul