"One table, two chairs, and a weak-looking plastic cord with a small-sized padlock attached looped around them. This fascination occurred in a random encounter at a public space in Eindhoven. It was signifying the intricacy for the sake of protection, the coexistence of dominance and reliance between the objects. The more I continued strolling, the (many, many, and many) more security elements in the everyday were picked up by my lens. A closer look this time revealed the codependency between subjects. One lashing itself to the other, wearing it around like jewelry."
'BONDAGE’ is compiling these urban artifacts of protection into a garment, to represent an obsession with safety as a loss of autonomy. It aims to replicate the accustomed effort and physical dependency we are creating for the cause of being protected. It is mirroring the act of being safe through a bodily dependent relationship contrary to the usual ‘outer-human-body’ experience. By being on you and shaped by your body, you feel its presence and become one with it, the constant feeling of assurance.
It builds itself from the protective shapes, pieces, and tools gathered from the various encounters in the urban environment. To gain autonomy it complexifies itself in exaggeration as a spiky body armor, an oversized jewelry ready to be worn. The object is wrapped, tightened, and locked in order to stay put and function properly. At first, the body is in control of this bond from beginning to end, but when the act is complete, the object gains autonomy. A complete dependency is formed: without the body the object does not function, without the object the body does not feel protected.
This complex mutualism is actualized in various ways, by being wrapped, taped, arrayed, fenced around. Thus the material qualities of these tools and their production principles allow them to surround the other, able to adapt the different actors, settings, and dependencies. The interaction becomes very intertwined, almost like ‘one wearing the other’, giving the object a visual aesthetic of a jewelry piece being worn.
