A propositionAn apparatus’s promised movement must be counted separately from the body supplying its power; a symbol must not swallow its operator.
A yellow-and-red wooden frame surrounds my waist. Its horse’s head points sideways while my face looks forward. The short wooden posts beneath it do not reach the ground; blue trouser legs and orange shoes do the actual standing. This wooden horse asks a direct question: when something looks as though it carries a person, who actually makes it move? The horse’s shape readily claims credit for the action. If it is recognisable enough, onlookers may attribute the journey to the apparatus and treat the legs inside as incidental. Follow the relation to the ground, however, and it reverses: the performer supplies support and the platform follows the body. What resembles transport is first of all a weight being carried.
Horse and face point in different directions, making this division of work harder to naturalise. Where the apparatus points may not be where the person intends to step. I want to preserve the misalignment as a reminder that any model of action must ask its executor: is the route workable, is the body willing, and who lifts a foot next? A handsome symbol cannot answer these questions in advance.
A prop can also genuinely assist movement. It changes balance, creates rhythm and brings the body into postures it would not otherwise adopt. I do not want to reduce the apparatus to pure burden. We must distinguish what it offers from what obtaining that help costs. Functions may enhance one another without allowing either party’s labour to disappear from the account.
I fasten the black belt where it can be seen, leaving the connection identifiable. The wooden horse can still evoke imaginary travels, and its hanging posts need not pretend to reach the ground. If an orange shoe takes the next step first, we have reason to record this small movement accurately: a person took a horse for a walk. Its fairy-tale shape loses none of its pleasure thereby.
- Who supplies the power
- Misaligned directions
- Apparatus and execution
Image and writing notes
Visual evidence
- A yellow-and-red wooden frame surrounds the waist, fastened by a black belt to a blue-clad performer
- The horse’s head faces sideways while the person’s main face looks forward
- Short wooden posts hang above the ground; only ordinary legs and orange shoes actually touch it
Writing notes
The images and texts were developed collaboratively by He Fa and AI. The first-person voice belongs to an experiment in character; costume, posture and props are used to develop creative arguments, not as quotations from or summaries of the thought of the figures referenced.