An Exploration of Human
Existence and Unfounded
Projection of Identification
Kevin Cheng, Ralph Guerrero &
Cliff Simmons
Before delving into what this
exploration means or entails,
let us do three things:
FIRST THING:
Try to come up with
as many words as
possible to describe
the figure on the
right in the
photograph.
SECOND THING:
Try to come up with
as many words as
possible to describe
the figure in this
photograph.
THIRD AND FINAL THING:
Notice and think about the difference between the
number of words your were able to come up with for the
first figure and number of words your were able to come
up with for the second figure.
“There are two kinds of people in this world; those who
think there are two kinds of people in the world and
those who don’t”
Robert Benchley’s Law of Distinction
If Benchley is correct, than why were we able to come
up with so many words for the two figures shown
previously?
These are the ideas that will be explored by Kevin
Cheng, Ralph Guerrero and Cliff Simmons. This
exploration will be conducted and expressed in an
interactive performance piece by which the audience in
the space of the performance will have elements of their
perceived identity taken from them in real time. In doing
this, we hope to reveal/prove two hypotheses that not
only mean a lot to us, but also that we feel would
contribute to society’s (and hopefully the greater world’s)
sense of shared humanity.
The two hypotheses are:
One cannot know another person’s geographical place
of birth, religious alignment, moral compass, etc by
simply looking at them.
Geographical place of birth, religious alignment, moral
compass, and other such icons of perception have no
universal meaning; they are all within the realm of local
minds and are not shared with all human beings.
Sense we have some time remaining, let us now be sure
that this artistic experiment isn’t just some aimless and
impractical pursuit.
What is the religion
of this human
being?
What is the religion
of this human
being?
ANSWER: JEWISH
Link to hypothesis a:
one cannot know a
person’s religion by
looking at their form.
Link to hypothesis b:
the idea of religion
only has meaning in
local minds. One
idea of religion is
not shared by all
humans.
What is the national
origin of this human
being?
What is the national
origin of this human
being?
ANSWER: SOUTH
AFRICA
Link to hypothesis a:
one cannot know a
person’s
geographical origin
by looking at their
form.
Link to hypothesis b:
the idea of a nation
was originally
stemmed by the
West.
Other support of our hypotheses:
Other support of our hypotheses:
CONCLUSION
Our art piece will be both an interactive performance
piece as well as a live experiment conduction by which
the audience in the space of said performance will have
elements of their perceived identity taken from them in
real time.
In doing this, we hope to reveal/prove that a person’s
face and outer appearance has little to no correlation to
their inner qualities, values, and beliefs. We also hope
to reveal/prove that such perceived relics are locally
meaningful, and have no significance outside the
boundary of the preceptor's culture.