Lukas Hofmann: Skin Come Leather, Vol. III
Part of Ultrasanity group exh, Performance at Invocations, SAVVY, Berlin
December 15, 2019 – February 9, 2020
Performance: January 25, 2020
Curators: Bonaventure Ndikung, Elena Agudio
Hofmann looks at skin as a permeable border, at eczema and allergy as failures of hypersensitive immune systems, that can be freely transposed onto wider societal issues. Skin as a multi-layered metaphor and sphere becomes Hofmann’s zone for interaction, manipulation, (self)violation, sensation, or exploitation: both dividing the bodily self from the rest of the world, and providing access to it; a sphere of the most intimate contact, letting the environmental elements enter the body, holding the body together and yet being so vulnerable to outer powers. The video in its hyper-tactile contemplations of skin as a membrane and border present the microscopic in a macro frame.
In an allergic reaction, a self-deterrent, overprotective, and protected body chooses to consume itself, it sends out histamines in an effort to cope with itself. A comprehensive multi-sensory experience, Skin Come Leather examines the allergy as a process of self-sabotage to reflect on hygiene beyond purification, transformation and reformation; accompanied by elements in between the realms of fetish, commercialized wellness and empowerment. Hofmann follows the rudimentary process of turning skin into leather – a commodity – alongside skin examinations and experiments. From the Greek allos, meaning different, and ergia, energy, allergy is also partially a construct stimulated by the development of human civilization.
A number of studies support the so-called hygienic hypothesis, according to which we have constructed our late capitalist urban environment as overly hygienic, clean and sanitary. Immune systems in such environment hastily turn against incoming externalities.
Lukas Hofmann: Skin Come Leather, Vol. III
Part of Ultrasanity group exh, Performance at Invocations, SAVVY, Berlin
December 15, 2019 – February 9, 2020
Performance: January 25, 2020
Curators: Bonaventure Ndikung, Elena Agudio
Hofmann looks at skin as a permeable border, at eczema and allergy as failures of hypersensitive immune systems, that can be freely transposed onto wider societal issues. Skin as a multi-layered metaphor and sphere becomes Hofmann’s zone for interaction, manipulation, (self)violation, sensation, or exploitation: both dividing the bodily self from the rest of the world, and providing access to it; a sphere of the most intimate contact, letting the environmental elements enter the body, holding the body together and yet being so vulnerable to outer powers. The video in its hyper-tactile contemplations of skin as a membrane and border present the microscopic in a macro frame.
In an allergic reaction, a self-deterrent, overprotective, and protected body chooses to consume itself, it sends out histamines in an effort to cope with itself. A comprehensive multi-sensory experience, Skin Come Leather examines the allergy as a process of self-sabotage to reflect on hygiene beyond purification, transformation and reformation; accompanied by elements in between the realms of fetish, commercialized wellness and empowerment. Hofmann follows the rudimentary process of turning skin into leather – a commodity – alongside skin examinations and experiments. From the Greek allos, meaning different, and ergia, energy, allergy is also partially a construct stimulated by the development of human civilization.
A number of studies support the so-called hygienic hypothesis, according to which we have constructed our late capitalist urban environment as overly hygienic, clean and sanitary. Immune systems in such environment hastily turn against incoming externalities.