A shabby man wanders, scavenging for whatever he can find from a pile of rubbish. Still, he shares leftover food with a stray cat, caressing the creature with a warm smile, the only positive expression on his nondescript face, in a capital city that betrays no sign of any human existence.
It is the most life-affirming snippet of his life (and our lives?) in the silent film Neon Ghost (2022), the central work in an ongoing exhibition titled "Utopia Now" by Austrian-based artist Kay Walkowiak at Jim Thompson Art Center until the end of June. Three other works include Fundamental Values (an installation of banners), Drifters (a video of moving leaves), and Encounters (a display of photographs of monkeys).
Neon Ghost features Thai performance artist Teerawat Kage Mulvilai, who plays the role of the homeless man, the work's main character. He's seen roving about day and night, from place to place, then later from life to after death. Integral to the 40-minute film is his exploration of abandoned buildings -- relics of modernity -- in Bangkok, including a skyscraper and a condemned shopping mall in Bang Lamphu.
An urban jungle of high rises has promised a utopia of opportunities, spurring migration from the provincial periphery. Yet cycles of boom and bust, for example, the financial crisis of 1997, meant some capitalists went out of business and abandoned their properties. Meanwhile, the working class, despite their substantial contribution, are reduced to spectral figures in the ever-growing neon-lit city.
A political undertone emerges. Early on, the roving man sits at Democracy Monument. Then later in an empty house the spectral figure comes across a radio emitting reports about the downfall of the military government. He walks past forlorn but persistent protesters. Implied perhaps is the triumph of democracy, but in a very distant future.
In that regard, the exhibition's three other works seem to offer clues as to what such a triumph may look like. Banners in Fundamental Values foreground the exercise of rights and freedom, something not frequently addressed in Thai politics, while Drifters and Encounters represent leaves and monkeys respectively -- non-human life forms -- to challenge our anthropocentric world view.
Utopia, or the island of nowhere, as envisioned by Sir Thomas More, is a recurring theme of the future in art. But "Utopia Now" proposes an alternative way of life at this very moment to break away from the crumbling capitalist world. In fact, the exhibition reminds me of many post-apocalyptic novels, for example, Margaret Atwood's Oryx And Crake (2003) and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven (2014), in which disaster and near human extinction make way for a new beginning.
