Bodies of Force (2025–2026) by Wantanee Siripattananuntakul

Bodies of Force is a three-channel video installation filmed at Mount Merapi, Goa Cemara, and the Cemeti Institute for Art and Society in Indonesia. The work centres on the simple act of releasing a coin from an elevated position and allowing gravity, wind, and surface conditions to determine its movement.

Each channel consists of a single, continuous take, presented without editing or compositing. Selected from multiple recordings, the footage resists narrative construction and post-production refinement, directing attention instead to duration, friction, and environmental contingency.

Removed from systems of economic exchange, the coin becomes a material object governed by physical forces rather than calculation or symbolic value. Its trajectory records the interaction between human intention and non-human agencies, revealing how agency is distributed across bodies, terrain, and atmosphere.

Developed alongside the artist’s ongoing research into perception, orientation, and planetary systems, Bodies of Force situates bodily movement within gravitational and environmental fields shaped by planetary and cosmic forces. Filmed across volcanic, coastal, and institutional landscapes, the work traces how location, climate, and infrastructure condition movement and attention.

Foregrounding instability, deviation, and uncertainty, the work frames these elements not as errors to be corrected but as fundamental conditions of contemporary experience. Through minimal gesture and sustained observation, Bodies of Force examines how bodies navigate layered systems of gravity, circulation, and environmental pressure.