COS-MOV:
COSPLAY AS AN ARTISTIC PRACTICE OF DAILY RESISTANCE.
COSPLAY AS AN ARTISTIC PRACTICE OF DAILY RESISTANCE.
By Estefania Escolar
COS-MOV is an artistic work I presented as my thesis to graduate as a professional visual artist from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. Its is composed of two main things: a book and an installation.
The essence of COS-MOV is to take cosplay as a whole to the political sphere (understanding political as the capacity to change the way people think, their subjectivity) in which it is an important practice that people become self-aware of their emotional/ irrational side. In modern society it's useless and dangerous because cosplaying is one of many ways to see and live a different model of life compared to the one society calls correct. For example, that’s why other people who live by society's mainstream forms of being, discriminate us, cosplayers and other subcultures by any means.
I propose we integrate our cosplay subculture into our daily lives. That’s why I made a series of live- performances transforming (in spanish I referred to them as “encosplayarse”) into several characters on a normal day in the middle of crowded places. I also pasted several flyers with cosplay pics of myself including different messages that invite the spectator (cosplayer or not) to question about her/his subjectivity on their daily lives.
Now, talking about the book, it is "written" by my alter ego Moka. Moka is my cat and the one responsible for developing this irrational awareness as an artist. She describes the process and the way how I see myself as a piece of quilting composed by many fragments of major and minor things: drawing, cosplay and Moka herself. Then the story proceeds to show how cosplay has become the biggest quilting patch. It is more than putting on a costume and it is more like a ritual of becoming the character as a mixture of moral compass and in physical appearances that changed my life. Next we have theoretical references that support my proposal of cosplay as a political activity with the power to change people for good, of being an alternate way of living for all of us that are tired of the sick mold called today´s society.
Finally, the installation was an exhibition of projecting recorded performances, the costumes I used and a recreation of my room with all the visual references of my artistic process. Even Moka was present in these visuals. In the walls we can find some of the most impacting paragraphs of the book that simulate a thread that goes all around the place linking the three stages of the installation.
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