A man named Tim has been sitting alone in the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania for six hours a day. Tim is a human canvas for an artwork titled Tim. The work was tattooed on to his back by the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye in 2008, and now Tim must sit in exhibitions a few times a year. When he dies, his skin will be preserved. For now, with no one in the museum, he's being live-streamed – a man in his 40s sitting alone in a silent hall.
I'm watching Tim on my laptop. He stays very still, with his head shrouded in darkness, though you can see him breathing. The tattoo has blue and red roses and lotus flowers and two children riding koi fish, and a praying Madonna who looks like the PM (I'm projecting).
There are many ways of reading the scene of Tim in the museum. He could be a picture of loneliness, or self-sacrifice, or art being given priority over human life. Or maybe this says more about me – that I'm sitting here looking at some guy's back through my laptop, when I should be working. By the time I finish writing this column, he will still be sitting alone on his plinth. Then one of Tim's arms twitches, like a sleeping cat's ear. And I think that he embodies a majestic peacefulness.
It must be tiring to sit there knowing that people all over the world are watching you and judging your tattoo (look, the tattoo is not very good). But it would be even more tiring and, perhaps more lonely, to be connected with the outside world. If Tim was connected to us all via Zoom, he would be able to see us looking at him. He'd also be able to see his own face looking back. Psychologists have been busy answering questions about Zoom during the past few weeks and they say that this is one reason Zoom calls are so draining. Not only are you making more effort than usual to pick up on non-verbal cues like body language and facial expression, but the presence of your own face on the screen makes you hyper-aware of how you appear to others, so you work harder to manage the impression you're making. You're trying to act normal when there is very little social bandwidth to draw upon. This all creates a feeling of disconnection at a time when you're most seeking closeness.
I look at Tim and see a picture of self-containment. He might be alone but he is free to imagine connection, instead of looking directly at it as if at a blazing sun.
