BLO 500 or How to Shape Undisclosed Identities

Interactive installation
500 inflatable dolls, sound and text, visitors’ air
Year: 2018

BLO 500 - Or How to Shape Undisclosed Identities is an interactive performative installation that questions the relationship between the individual and the social category.

What makes a person be part of a certain social mechanism? Is it the individual that determines the perception of a social category? Or perhaps it is the collective identity aggregation that attracts an individual to be part of it. 

What is the role of a single person in a contemporary context where the perception on category is a principle of statistics that denies the basic necessity to perceive the individual as a human and not as a number.

The installation consists in a series of inflatable identical people that are inflated by the artist, while all the visitors are invited to participate in this ritual of giving shape of a person, by enveloping the plastic doll by mouth, therefore letting inside the doll the artist’s or the visitors’ own air. Thereby, even though the dolls have all the same color and shape, by letting the visitors to inflate them, they all acquire a hidden identity inside them, by preserving a distinct air breathed by each person that takes part at this action.

THE VOICE OVER

A gang of protesters. An army. A platoon. Inflatable dolls in a production factory. Working children. Callisthenics dancers. Human rights demonstrators. A riot. Forced exodus. Strangers posing in a memory group photo. Nomads. Homeless people. John Doe. Jane Doe. Unidentified victims. A choir. A theatre audience. Children in a playground. A mass grave. A peace march. A war march. A pride parade. A concert crowd. Tourists in historical places. A carnival. New neighbours. One night standers. Chaturbate performers. Strippers. Online porn actors. Hotel staff. Cleaners. Domestics. Street artists. Backing vocalists. Web hackers. Undocumented refugees. Un-documentable refugees. People in witness protection programs. Sex workers. Incognito government agents. Expelled new born babies. Unnamed humanoid dolls. People wearing balaclavas. Crossdressers. Inner airflow blowers. Identity shapers. People in Zentai suits. Non-disclosure agreement signers. Human imitating bots. Chancellors of disguise. Sociopaths. Haters on Twitter. Violent football fans on the streets.Little traffic light men. Untraceable serial killers. Off-the-grid loners. YouTube commentators. Identity thieves. Whistle blowers. Go-go dancers. Terrorists. Cloistered nuns. Film extras. Masked Jihadi fighters. Nameless characters in novels. Women wearing burqas. Ghost writers. Ghosts. Celebrities’ bodyguards. Doppelgängers. Graffiti artists. Sex cruisers in a park by night. Unrecognisable characters in famous paintings. Gun runners. Stalkers. Flashers. Old people attracted to dogging. Orchestra players. Corpses used in anatomy classes. Hermits. Nudists on a beach. Amateur vigilantes. Ninjas. A commando squad. Clowns. Living statues in a historical square. A mime assembly. Illuminati. Shadows attached to people.