A woman and a man appear on stage. Low wooden objets, strings of beads threaded onto drooping materials, stones and cords, and amorphous objects made of clay stand upright on the stage or are scattered across the floor. The performers and artists Hyeree Ro and Lucas Yasunaga rub wood with stones, carefully toss stones onto the floor, and delicately bring pieces of wood into contact with one another, producing the sounds of objects.
 
These objects ultimately create a polyphonic, planetary harmony in the final climax. The sound of a grass whistle, electronic tones, wood striking wood, scraping sounds on the floor, the tearing sound of a barrel-shaped objet—this crossing of sounds evokes something like a dramatic moment of communication among objects. The energy and information of each individual object seem to be exchanged horizontally through sound. In other words, the tactile connections among multiple object-beings, and the “string figure” actions performed by different species of objects, are summoned through sound.
 
If Hyeree Ro’s earlier performance Jinhee and Jini centered on the artist’s adopted Sapsaree dog “Jini,” the bodies of two performers who became stray cats—more precisely, the “body that became an animal” and the “body of an animal”—and the story as seen from the perspective of those animals, then Maju focuses on the body that has become an object, or on the object itself.

In other words, the performance Maju moves beyond the relationality between objects and bodily action toward the performance of the object itself. “I am solid and liquid…” “I am flour, paper, and grass… soaked, torn, and mixed for days, then cast.” In Hyeree Ro’s performance, I become an objectified thing, and at the same time the object forms an alliance with my body. The objects that appear in Maju are therefore not something objectified as a mere target; rather, they are transitional objects closely connected with my body. Here the categorical boundary between human and nonhuman (object) becomes more flexible and ultimately traverses itself.
 
Hyeree Ro’s performances contain a gaze of absolute embrace—one that draws in otherness, or even dissolves that otherness altogether, willingly placing the self in the space where the other once stood. This can be seen in the way she projects an artistic gaze onto “Jini,” the Sapsaree dog that went unadopted for a long time because she was older, large, overweight, ill, and lacked pedigree certification, and performs from Jini’s perspective.

It also appears in the way she strips objects of their utilitarian value and forms an ontological and organic alliance between them and her own body. In this moment, objects form their own universe, possess their own energy, and live independent lives. By listening to the sounds of nonhumans, animals, and objects, and by attempting to share the vitality and energy they emit, Hyeree Ro’s performances continually invite us to look toward the worlds of other beings.

References

• [리뷰] 노혜리의 퍼포먼스 〈마주〉 - 사물이 된 신체
  [Review] Hyeree Ro’s Performance Maju — The Body that Became an Object