Lights, camera, auction: how one man plans to get a head online
The idea that every person and every thing is somehow connected has been mulled over by everyone, from ancient Buddhists to social scientists. And in today's digital age, the 'six degrees of separation' theory rings even truer - now that every long-lost friend is a Google search and an e-mail away.
Canadian-Hong Kong conceptual artist Ran Elfassy decided to test the theory one night in February. He went to the bathroom of his Lamma flat with a digital camera, took a photo of himself in the mirror, logged onto eBay and sold it for US$4.99 plus shipping. That was the beginning of his 350 Rans project, in which he plans to auction a new self-portrait every week for 350 weeks - more than six-and-a-half years. His goal is to create new connections all over the world, including with celebrities he'll ask to pose alongside him.
Despite having seen online shots of Elfassy's various body parts (his self-portraits aren't the most traditional), I have a hard time spotting him in the crowded Foreign Correspondents' Club dining room. Finally, a tall, olive-skinned man glances up from his library copy of Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance and waves.
'It was one dash insomnia, two dashes creative frustration,' he says. Elfassy works as an editor for Doctor Magazine, although the 31-year-old has also studied medical clinical trial research and creative writing, worked with the Ontario Human Rights Commission and performed with Montreal performance-art group Fluffy Pagan Echoes. 'We made lots of trouble,' he says. 'It was very political work, but with a strong aesthetic. We had a way of describing ourselves: like a grain of sand in the cornea. It's not debilitating, but enough to make you stop.'
In this ambitious new project, in which Elfassy has to reinvent himself every week, he also stretches the definition of what constitutes a self-portrait. 'The common denominator is that some part of me has to feature,' he says. 'I'm trying to play with the form as much as possible.'
So far, there are 18 shots. There's a blurry photo of him jumping over a tiled rooftop, and another of his signature scrawled on a piece of paper. Others include a snapshot of him climbing a mountain far in the distance with a pigeon in the foreground, and a doctored image of him projected on a laptop screen in a darkened room, whose red glow is reminiscent of that of a darkroom. 'That's my wife's body,' Elfassy says. 'My head is Photoshopped on.'
He has also posed with business pioneer Ranjan Marwah, founder of Executive Access. Elfassy, dressed in a suit, lies down on the Astroturf of the Prince's Building rooftop, on top of Marwah's penthouse office space. He clutches a tee and golf ball in his mouth while Marwah swings at him with a golf club. 'At one point he clipped my jaw slightly,' Elfassy says. 'I just closed my eyes.'
Elfassy and I are meeting because a boyfriend of a friend introduced us - bringing us back to his theory about interconnectedness. 'There is this thread tying you to me, to everybody,' he says. 'Who knows where that thread will lead to?'
It's the reason Elfassy chose the internet as his exhibition space. 'The web brings people together and lets them share ideas, trade stories, meet, fall in love,' he writes in the project's programme notes. 'The internet is a fancy new way of connecting people. 350 Rans isn't about the internet, but that's where it's happening.'
Elfassy says he wants to enlist famous people in the project. 'It's part of the idea of everyone being connected,' he says. 'For example, on the internet, there are certain sites that are hubs for attention, and many of these are celebrity sites. In real life, celebrities are also hubs of attention. I want to use the power of celebrities to create more interest for my project.' His list of potential celebrities rather optimistically includes Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng, Jackie Chan, Eminem, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Waits, Noam Chomsky and Kofi Annan.
'Maybe I'll fail, but with patience, persistence and talking to people, there's the potential here for it to really expand,' Elfassy says. So far, he's managed to photograph himself being punched by Alain N'Galani, the world heavyweight muay thai kickboxing champion.
Elfassy hasn't made more than US$50 on a photo. He promises to donate part of his profits to Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network or other green groups. He says that, for him, the environment is another example of how everything is linked.
'It's about creating awareness,' says Elfassy, who has a recycling logo tattooed on his leg. 'By bringing more discussion and money to these charities, much-needed changes may come about.'
