Joshua Soenario






MOVING IMAGE
Slimy & Sticky
Big Bellied Snail

BOOK
In Between
Slow or Slower



About

Contact
joshuasoenario@gmail.com
Instagram

Slimy & Sticky / 2026
Dual channel video, writing, 2’41’’





The project originated from a recurring dream that I would experience every time I had a fever.

In the dream, there are images that are difficult to describe—participatory yet impossible to control. The panic and anxiety produced by being involved while unable to influence its progression repeatedly jolted me awake. This form of memory also reminded me of the state of dissolution experienced during meditation.

Through my exploration of psychoanalysis, I encountered Carl Jung’s concept of ‘active imagination’, which offered a way for me to voluntarily enter a similar state, while allowing glimpses of deities and symbols emerging from the unconscious. By adopting ‘active imagination’ as a working methodology, I project the subconscious into a miniature theatre, observing its transformations and modes of life. In parallel, the work also incorporates a theatrical construction that arises from pure bodily interaction with modelling clay—another unconscious state grounded in physical engagement. Combined with Vaseline and soil, this process evokes the fluidity and primal qualities embedded within the unconscious.

The video employs a non-linear editing structure, accompanied by segmented text and fragmented voice-over, in order to reconstruct the randomness and urgency with which images emerge during the process of active imagination. At the same time, the editing functions as a form of unconscious creation: through destructive montage, traces of narrative intention produced during the translation of active imagination into images are dismantled. Logical structures are erased, allowing the images to generate themselves organically.

The selection of sound responds to the anxiety produced by the blurring boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness during fever-induced sleep. The primary symbols appearing in the video—such as pigs and sheep eyeballs—create an uncanny harmony through the juxtaposition of childlike imagery and catastrophic undertones, revealing a coexistence of self-analysis and self-consumption.

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