“Leviathan” is a project in which you participate in an unconscious way while walking on Centenary Square pavement. A human figure is represented through a large-scale mural of Leviathan, named after a written work by philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1651), to describe the role of the State as the “political body”. Each viewer takes part in the experience, passing over and they collectively represent society. Thomas Hobbes recognised that ‘free’ individuals choose to give up their will to an Assembly or a sovereign state in order to guarantee peace and security. Hobbes speaks of the whole as composed of bodies and how these bodies are distributed within a space.
The question is not who governs, but how to govern.
By creating an installation that evolves, I wanted to reflect how democracy works in our society. We believe that we are free within a democratic state, with the right to vote, but as Hobbes would say, the only freedom that we have is “the freedom of moving our bodies within a delimited space.”
Each visitor’s footsteps are “free” and unconscious on the body of the State and will wash away the idealism of democracy. “If a fish swims in a tank and feels free it can never reach the sea.”
The final result of the project is for all of us to participate with our footsteps and erase the body of the State.
More info: anweiluli.com
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