Gen McFarland

What makes a body more than just meat?

In modern culture we seem to keep moving away from our bodies instead of into them: We talk of appearance and functionality more than we talk about the way our flesh experiences the world. We hear about rapid technological developments that are supposed to change the way we encounter our environment more than we learn about how bodily wisdom can open us up to fuller ways of being.

What does it feel like to truly be in the flesh, what all is stored in it? Does flesh dream, does it think, does it long for things, does it feel pleasure autonomously from the thinking mind? And what happens when we solely listen to this Mindbody entity and might not even know how to connect with flesh?

Therein exist the dynamics between 'thinking' and 'fleshing'. A thought that lingers in a body, or is it the flesh that lingers in thought?

"Acts of Witness" is an investigation into the moments where we might - consciously or subconsciously - encounter our bodies.

We clean them, feed them, rest them, dress them up... Are we able to witness fragments of our body-mind in these interactions?

This installation was developed alongside my research paper ‘fragments: diving into the meat container’.