Evanescence is part of The Anesthesia Quartet, a collection of four video works by John Sanborn. The works explore the formation of self - the concepts that tie us to an idea of self and the everyday challenges we must face to maintain a sense of self. The works express self as both a fragile construct requiring constant work and a powerful structure through which to navigate and process the world.
The body holds the secrets of nature, wordlessly honoring a collection of outtakes and side steps. Our DNA includes hard-wired functions – survival and evolution, but also a desire to party our way to self-awareness.
We cook our food to enjoy eating.
We listen to music to liberate our minds.
And we dance to be freed from gravity while reminded of our inevitable decline. Fragility and depletion on the edge of sorrow evaporates with mirrored gestures.
Discorporate events lead to a release from the prison of existence and delete the screen between thought and impulse. Hope materializes in the form of female grace, to the concave and convex as we attempt to jump outside our own shadows. We are no longer insistent on finding a source, a point of origin. Instead we give in to a longing to belong, as ghosts fuse past and present together.
Personal (“I don’t dance”) and universal (“move your ass”) unify as we recognize ourselves in the shapes of others. Long before we had doubts, we had souls that could find peace without being judged.
- John Sanborn
