The Button
(or lack thereof)
The Button (or lack thereof) is a mobile sculpture composed of various low-resolution images of bellybuttons, each passed through deconstructive processes that result in a glitched, quasi-archival collection. This piece was directly inspired by my own experience one year ago. Last fall I underwent emergency abdominal surgery, leading to the removal of my belly button. What initially seemed insignificant–a part of my body I had always overlooked–became a significant absence, motivating me to explore the concepts of loss and imperfection through this piece.
The sculpture’s intrinsic dynamic nature allows it to shift and evolve throughout time, much like the circulation of images that Steryerl describes. As the piece moves in response to its environment, each image subtly changes its position–suggesting the fluid nature of both digital and physical forms. Over time, I imagine the piece to continue to evolve, the glitches revealing themselves as more imperfect and more tangled as new environmental factors appear. Similar to the “poor image” which gains new layers of meaning as they circulate and detach from their origins.
