Praying single channel video, 10m 12s, 2024
Praying single channel video, 10m 12s, 2024
The video examines prayer not as a symbolic gesture but as a physical protocol grounded in pressure, moisture, and duration. The work begins with the artist holding a stone with wet hands, remaining still in a posture reminiscent of prayer. This moment of suspension foregrounds the tactile dimension of the act: the transfer of moisture, the weight of the stone, and the continuous feedback between skin and mineral surface.
When the stone is placed down, the remnant moisture on its surface gradually infiltrates the material and disappears. The slow absorption functions as a temporal record—an index of contact that exceeds visibility yet remains materially active. In this sense, stone becomes a medium that registers the aftereffects of touch rather than its immediacy, operating as a silent archival surface that captures the dissipating trace of bodily engagement.
Praying thus reframes prayer as a procedure in which the body both confirms and erodes its presence. The work investigates how an intimate ritual, often perceived as immaterial, generates measurable residues—pressure, dampness, evaporation—and how these residues form a transient archive of the body’s interaction with matter.