In an intimate setting, where it doesn’t matter that you’re moving in someone’s aura—where stirring that aura is, in fact, desired, possibly the purpose of gathering; in the closeness where the other is allowed to breathe right in your face, where that gurgling stomach could be yours or just as easily theirs; in this physically close togetherness, it could happen that both press their noses together, the tips or the wings, and look into each other’s eyes. One might look up and find: just one eye, two eyes forged by the brain into a single image. And in that moment, one might realize that the Cyclops—however fiercely depicted in old engravings and rambling tales—could, in potential, represent the pinnacle of dear intimacy.
Salomé Mooij’s Proxemics will be performed on May 26 at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.