The Oscillating Quality of Anxiety

The genesis of this work was a sense of profound placelessness. My exploration redefines anxiety not as an external reaction, but as an intrinsic quality that self-oscillates through its surroundings.

I once held the conviction that anxiety was merely an exogenous effect, a response generated by contingent environmental factors. Yet, through the continued process of making, I came to realize that anxiety is not something injected from the outside; rather, it is an intrinsic quality that self-oscillates through its relationship with the surrounding environment.

To investigate this abstract sensation, I chose the sphere as a simple yet potent form. The sphere is not a mere object but a projection of my own being. The way it rolls restlessly and precariously mirrored my existential state: unsettled, swayed by circumstances, and struggling to find a fixed position. The sphere symbolizes an entity that never stops moving, a continuous state of instability.

Inside the studio, I sought to control everything to prevent my anxiety from being directly exposed to the outside gaze. My act of concealing and transforming the sphere's inherent appearance—by wrapping it with colored film or drastically inverting the colors—was a deliberate defense mechanism to ensure my inner instability remained hidden. The studio was a predictable fortress of my own making, yet the sphere persistently betrayed that control, always exposing its inherent restlessness even within that contained space.

Photography captures a singular moment in a world of continuous motion. I initially believed this act of grasping a moment could force the tremor to cease. But through repeated sessions, I realized that the photograph, far from being evidence of stillness, is itself merely a fragment testifying to unpredictable movement. Rather than stabilizing anxiety, photography became a device that ruthlessly exposed its unpredictability and the unyielding impossibility of true suspension.

As the project evolved, the sphere became transparent. Where a red ball asserts its presence through sharp environmental contrast, the transparent sphere reveals its existence only through light, reflection, and refraction. This shift reflects my own changing understanding: moving from viewing anxiety as a fixed object to understanding it as a self-oscillating quality that lives within its context and spatial relationships.

In certain images, the sphere vanishes, leaving only ripples or shadows behind. I accepted that anxiety cannot be eliminated and chose instead to remain in the position of an observer, simply tracing its trajectory. This project is not a search for a solution or remedy; it is an ongoing process of inquiry and documentation to understand that unpredictable movement.

If anxiety is an inseparable quality of our existence, how can we co-exist with it? Photography captures the moment but cannot capture the entire trajectory. What, then, can the photograph truly testify to, and how can we live with this inherent uncertainty?