Oracular Dance
Pia Watson, 2025
Single channel black & white video on screen in wooden box
11:22
Pia Watson, 2025
Single channel black & white video on screen in wooden box
11:22
Oracular Dance is an ongoing performative body-unconscious exploration testing if a physical body can shed light to conflicts arising in a different body through a shared field of information. This piece has been shown as a series of offline performances in intimate spaces; for Salon Acme, the piece will be remade and presented as a single channel video loop with a set no of performance possibilities or “answers” based on 8 core movement frames. The video in this submission serves as an example of a previous session.
Drawing inspiration from Carl Jung’s work of the (collective) unconscious, adding the body as a pivotal component for solving trauma and conflict in Wilhem Reich & Carlos de Leon’s work, Oracular Dance highlights the urgency of reaching beyond ourselves and by connecting with the other, find solutions through a shared subtle space.
The spectator is encouraged to ask a question offering them the possibility of an answer through the video movement loop they happen to witness. A modern-day oracle, a movement I-ching, dancing tarot, or pure charlatanry, your choice.
Drawing inspiration from Carl Jung’s work of the (collective) unconscious, adding the body as a pivotal component for solving trauma and conflict in Wilhem Reich & Carlos de Leon’s work, Oracular Dance highlights the urgency of reaching beyond ourselves and by connecting with the other, find solutions through a shared subtle space.
The spectator is encouraged to ask a question offering them the possibility of an answer through the video movement loop they happen to witness. A modern-day oracle, a movement I-ching, dancing tarot, or pure charlatanry, your choice.
Oracular Dance_g
Pia Watson, 2025
Photography and ink on paper
59 cm x 42 cm
Pia Watson, 2025
Photography and ink on paper
59 cm x 42 cm
Divination is deeply intertwined with our fears, of isolation, the unknown, and ultimately, the fear of death. As humanity, we have sought for means of divination, ways to foresee the future, and answer questions that can potentially help us navigate the space-time we perceive as linear. Whether it be the Oracle of Delphi, Khandro-la, the State Medium of the Tenma Oracle in Tibetan Buddhism, or a tarot app on your smartphone, we’ve sought ways to find direction—a compass for love, success, or simply understanding the unknown.
Yet, are they all the same? Does the oracle’s success lie on the value we transfer onto it or upon subtle energies or divine beings? Modern deep psychology would claim it's a product of our personal unconscious pushing us to develop- that ultimately, answers are in our body.
The image for this submission is an ideological approximation of the piece, a series of 33 photographs taken from Oracular Dance (video piece) laid as values for divination + instructions on how to use.