PARASITE

Inspired by last tutorial when Michelle talked about living in others’ home without being realised/noticed, I thought of the movie “parasite”, where the poor family relied on the rich family secretly while they could never be the domination of the house or their own living. It also reminds me of a note I took before:

Roxana’s body and her house are bound together by parallel clauses in an identity she will learn to exploit. Within this chilling interior emptiness she begins a series of invisible occupancies, secretly inhabiting (and learning to control) spaces that appear closed and empty to the rest of the world […]
THE DOMESTIC SPACE READER

It’s an effort of occupying the space as well as her own identity.

Domestic space is like materialised mental space. I don’t feel I belong, which is like I’m not the domination of the space, and I’m not the domination of my emotions. I live like a parasite, depending on a host dominating/saving me.

I found the following words related as well:

The Modernist break from tradition is a rupture with rootedness. At stake of course is the nature of dwelling and the home and the modern anxieties over the inevitability of ‘homelessness’ (Heynen 2001). This is the problem that Heidegger identifies: ‘The proper dwelling plight lies in this, that mortals ever search anew for the essence of dwelling, that they must ever learn to dwell’ (1993: 363). This problem is what Morgan refers to in his preface to House and House-life of American Aboriginals (1881): ‘Every institution of mankind which attained permanence will be found linked with a perpetual want’ (quoted in Bohannan 1965: xvi). This restlessness is what characterises the Modernist preoccupation with the architecture of dwelling. Transfixed as we are by this problem, as Heynen observed, we have tended to focus on the melancholic object of our restlessness and loss: dwelling – despairing to fix and grasp it (as with Heidegger) or more nihilistically despairing at our own despair (see Heynen on Adorno, Eisenman and Cacciari).
Handbook of Material Culture

The sense of not belonging/no root, the conflict of dwelling and ‘homelessness’, the constant desire of occupying the house.

My body form is dependent on the surroundings, inspired by VALIE EXPORT’s work:

https://www.moma.org/artists/7816?=undefined&page=&direction=fwd

Under the Table

Tried different positions and lighting angles, and found the last one was with less shadow and the arms were placed against the table so that it’s less visible.

Behind the Curtain

The portrait view looks better and the placement off the center shows the idea of hiding/not dominating better.

Thought of completely hiding behind the curtain while showing the shape of the body through light but there’s not suitable light to achieve the effect. And I think the final position relates better to other photos as they’re all not completely hidden. It supposed to be my own dominated space after all.

Under the Bed