Following the rise of cybernetics and dystopian cyberpunk novels like Neuromancer, cyberspace is conceptualized as a disembodied realm, a hallucinatory space where bodies become phantom bytes of information. In the essay “The Utopian Body” Michel Foucault describes the origin of Utopia as the desire of an incorporeal body. The longing for Utopia arises through the rejection of the body’s finitude and materiality. The color blue has a history parallel to this utopian impulse serving as a signifier for the heavenly and immaterial. From careful research I drew examples from art history, film, politics and digital technology to stick together a series of video clips into a visual essay dealing with the color blue as signifier for an immaterial state. From space flight to Yves Klein monochromes, digital projectors and computer screens, a collection of blue bodies projecting different vectors but always remaining within its place. The piece comprises two parts, a projected corner using a combination of the default no signal blue of the projector and chroma key paint. On the back the visual essay creates a dialogue with the incandescent blue.
