INNER EXISTENCE
Initially, I reckoned that people might mainly see me by appearance. From British people’s perspectives, I
am a Asian student; from other Asian people’s perspectives, I am a Taiwanese. Nevertheless, some people
see others by their academic background; thus, from their perspectives, I could be architectural designer,
photographer, director or engineer. People from different parts of world might have various races, careers,
nationalities, genders, and religions, and theses characteristics should be the most obvious factors to be seen;
however, from animals’ perspectives, we are all human. So, what is the true essence of human?
What is my identity? Do I truly understand myself better that others do?
Initially, I reckoned that people might mainly see me by appearance. From British people’s perspectives, I
am a Asian student; from other Asian people’s perspectives, I am a Taiwanese. Nevertheless, some people
see others by their academic background; thus, from their perspectives, I could be architectural designer,
photographer, director or engineer. People from different parts of world might have various races, careers,
nationalities, genders, and religions, and theses characteristics should be the most obvious factors to be seen;
however, from animals’ perspectives, we are all human. So, what is the true essence of human?
If we divided human into two parts: physical part and mental part, we might notice that the priority of
mental part , which is consciousness, is invisible and intangible, yet every living human have hearts,
regardless of their appearance. Thus, the beating hearts might be the most important evidences of our
physical existence. According to an article written by David Hambling from MIT Technology Review, there
is a developing prototype which can identify people’s heartbeats from distance. Importantly, everyone’s
heartbeats are totally unique; it is better than face recognition. In the book ‘The Eyes of the Skin’ from IED
reading list, the author made an significant and inspiring definition of relationship between senses. He says,
'All the senses, including vision, can be regarded as extensions of the sense of touch - as specialisation of the
skin. They define the interface between the skin and the environment - between the opaque interiority of the
body and the exteriority of the world.’ (Juhani Pallasmaa, 2012 ) Thus, if all the senses could be seen as
extensions of the sense of touch, can we using the vibration from our heart to generate other senses , and
then communicate?
Motivated by these theories and developments, I tried to clarify the research question for this project as
below. Could people, including I and the others, communicate with each other or understand others by our
heartbeats? And how it works? Keeping exploring the possibilities, It reminds me that I had visited an installation named Les Archives du
Cœur, created by French Artist Christian Boltanski. This project has been recording people’s heartbeat from
different places and in various ages to build an library, with an audio-reactive installation showing the power
of life. Instead of building a library of people's heartbeats, I have been trying to record my own heartbeat
related to different scenarios. I used a simple VR device with earphones playing the visual and sound data
recorded when I was traveling, or simply specific colours and white noises, which allows me recalling the
relevant memories in my mind, ; simultaneously, I recorded my heartbeat at the moment.
I transformed these audio data to create representations, such as moving images based on the
bangs by MAX/MSP, and paintings using the vibration from speaker and gravity. Besides, I asked people to
watch theses visualised data and answer me if they had some relevant scenarios occurred in their mind by
instinct.
Briefly, all these works are based on the same notion. The mysterious heartbeats inside our bodies
sounds simple, yet might they contain the informations related to something beyond our imagination?
