Shuman Basar, Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist. 2021. The Extreme Self.

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This page from "The Extreme Self" toys with contrast, the statement seems existential, even meditative in a way while the image shown in the background is confrontational and threatening. This work in particular caught my attention because I recognized the person in the image, artist Eliza Douglas, who often works with the human body through performance and painting. The text is superimposed into Douglas' figure, the black and white scheme turns her open mouth into a sort of void. Words are separated into three blocks, the first is comprised of statements while the other two provide questions. The first sentences are like an accusation, condemning people's obsession with their vanity, the following question inquires about how this obsession is formed, while the final question indicates that the narrator has fallen victim to this "obsession" with presentation, they are absorbed into this cycle. The way this image is created leads the viewer through a narrative journey that reveals something of observer depending on how it's interpreted. Self-presentation can be seen both as vain, or as human need.

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