In what the artist calls an exercise in empathy and evocation, German-born Markus Hansen pairs portraits of himself with men, women and children of all ages for a DVD loop now playing on the Media Test Wall: ���Other People���s Feelings Are Also My Own ��� Soul Drawings 2004-2006.���
By dressing like and adopting the facial expression of his partner-subjects, Paris-based Hansen strives to portray their emotional rather than their physical identities.
Hansen chose people of diverse genders and races in an attempt both to erase and to critique the artificiality of the concept of ���difference.��� These portraits, he says, are about ���how we inhabit each other, reside in each other, and how we always leave traces in each other.���
Hansen���s loop is on view 24 hours a day in Building 56 through Friday, Aug. 18.
