LIBUŠE KOPŮNCOVÁ

Flesh in the Cloud

Painting Studio 3

In your work, you write that virtual performance is an experience that lies somewhere between a liminal experience and a “technologically constructed hallucination of the real.” Where do you think the boundary lies between a truly physical experience and its simulation in digital space? And is the “frantic production of corporeality” you discuss in your work more of a critique of digital culture (in its drive to replace physical experience) or do you see it as an opportunity to think about the new types of corporeality emerging in the digital environment?
For me, these are not two separate things, but rather two layers of a single contemporary experience. I am interested in that paradoxical moment when the digital environment tries to mimic corporeality so strongly that it reveals what is missing from the body; the closer it gets, the further it drifts away. And I am not sure if we really want to bring the body back into digital space, or just fill the void left by its absence. I see the frantic production of corporeality as both a critique and a tool – it highlights this effort, but at the same time opens up the possibility of thinking about new types of corporeality. Moreover, I believe that the digital and physical no longer have fixed boundaries.

Don’t you think that viewing VR as a simulacrum that no longer represents reality but creates its own hyperreality runs the risk that a performance taking place in digital space will become an aesthetic image rather than a genuine shared experience?
The risk that a performance will become just an image is real. But I try to avoid that by using slowness, silence, and ambiguity, which engage the viewer differently than visual attractors. I am not interested in an illusion of reality, but in a situation where the viewer begins to become more aware of themselves. I am interested in the moment when materiality recedes, leaving only its trace, so that the viewer remains somewhat removed. I believe it is precisely through this tension that an image can transform into an experience. 

Each act of the performance shows recurring themes, such as revelation, sacrifice or bodily transformation. How do you understand these rituals? And do you think they represent a path to inner transformation? 
I see rituals as a way to get closer to what we don’t usually realize, to our memory and to inner states. It is not about a story, but a process: revelation, loss, and transformation. That transformation is not so much a result as a moment when something becomes present to us. I have no control over it, but I think one can take away a certain relational framework, a way of perceiving oneself and one’s surroundings. And this individual experience can then be projected into a broader, collective context.

photo: Polina Davydenko