Yao Binglu

"The Perspective of Everything"

Section MS5, Lilly Markaki

Keywords: nature, colonial studies, moving image

Reverse Gaze invites viewers to see the world and themselves through the eyes and sensors of non-human entities. The project was initially inspired by an exploration of Amerindian cosmology, which posits a multiplicity of subjects or persons — gods, spirits, the dead, inhabitants of other cosmic levels, plants, meteorological phenomena, geographic accidents, objects, and artifacts — with unique modes of inhabiting the world, all considered equally 'true.' By reversing or transposing the gaze from the human to a collective of unspecified non-humans, the project playfully engages non-human perception and aesthetics, encouraging viewers to speculate about alternative modes of existence within the world. Through techniques such as time-lapse photography and mirroring, and by placing the camera in unfamiliar positions or angles, Reverse Gaze reconfigures its medium to challenge anthropocentrism.