The term, public solitude originates from the acting method developed by renowned Russian director and theater reformer Konstantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski, who influenced generations of actors as well as Lee Strasberg, the founder of method acting, used the term to describe a state in which actors become so immersed in their roles during a performance that they forget the presence of the audience. In this state, they act instinctively, from themselves, from the unconscious.
In Charmaine Poh’s interpretation, this concept becomes a form of isolation in which the boundaries between child and actress, role and person, begin to blur. Her two-channel video installation features footage of Poh as a child actress in the series "We Are REM", from 2002 to 2004, sitting alone and uncertain on a bed. On the second screen appears her avatar, E-Ching, the girl from the series. Against shifting backgrounds, the character repeats the phrase that she is pixel flesh, born of code, immortal, and twelve, each time with varying intonation. Glitches and visual distortions become more frequent; the sound cuts out, and both figures begin to flicker. Eventually, it becomes unclear whether both recordings are digital fabrications, so-called deepfakes.
Like her earlier work "GOOD MORNING YOUNG BODY" (2021-23), "public solitude" explores the porous boundaries between authenticity and performance, reality and virtuality, inner and outer experience.
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The term, public solitude originates from the acting method developed by renowned Russian director and theater reformer Konstantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski, who influenced generations of actors as well as Lee Strasberg, the founder of method acting, used the term to describe a state in which actors become so immersed in their roles during a performance that they forget the presence of the audience. In this state, they act instinctively, from themselves, from the unconscious.
In Charmaine Poh’s interpretation, this concept becomes a form of isolation in which the boundaries between child and actress, role and person, begin to blur. Her two-channel video installation features footage of Poh as a child actress in the series "We Are REM", from 2002 to 2004, sitting alone and uncertain on a bed. On the second screen appears her avatar, E-Ching, the girl from the series. Against shifting backgrounds, the character repeats the phrase that she is pixel flesh, born of code, immortal, and twelve, each time with varying intonation. Glitches and visual distortions become more frequent; the sound cuts out, and both figures begin to flicker. Eventually, it becomes unclear whether both recordings are digital fabrications, so-called deepfakes.
Like her earlier work "GOOD MORNING YOUNG BODY" (2021-23), "public solitude" explores the porous boundaries between authenticity and performance, reality and virtuality, inner and outer experience.
Charmaine Poh, public solitude, 2022
Two-channel digital video, deepfake
4’00’’
© Charmaine Poh
Further artworks from this exhibition
Introduction of the exhibition
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GOOD MORNING YOUNG BODY, 2021-23
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Majie, 2016
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The Moon is Wet, 2025
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What’s softest in the world rushes and runs over what’s hardest in the world, 2024
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