Xooang Choi has recognized various problems, such as the antimony that the members of modern society seem to be subjective and spontaneous, but are eventually subordinate to highly advanced systems, and expressed them using the deformation, exaggeration, and distortion of human body. His Islets of Aspergers focuses on each individual that lives in this society. Coming from the macro perspective of problems born from social structures, his works are now concentrating on the loss and isolation of individuals that live within yet are isolated.
The individuals are included in a massive social system that runs as toothed wheels, but they are in loss and isolation. They are like lonely islets that are detached from one another. Through Islets of Aspergers, he ponders what fragments the islets and makes them drift farther apart and concludes that the problem is the lack of communication as each individual confine themselves, not being able to connect to others.
Like his previous works did, such as Vegetative State and Pruritus, Asperger’s Syndrome comes from a pathological term, meaning a kind of autism. However, the difference between Asperger’s Syndrome and autism is that one with Asperger’s Syndrome has no difficulty with language, the fundamental of social interaction and communication. However, one with Asperger’s Syndrome fails to understand physical and facial gestures, which are the means of non-language interaction, and is constantly obsessed with one or two extremely limited interests to acquire knowledge on them and to talk about them repeatedly. This causes difficulties with emotional sharing, keeping him/her away from normal social interaction. Eventually, he/she is confined in himself/herself and isolated from the rest of the world. He connects this symptom to the lack of communication experienced by modern people.
His Islets of Aspergers series, each with a serial number, shows the characteristics of Asperger’s Syndrome by exaggerating and distorting a body part. These images constantly give doubtful stares to the outer world or act indifferent to everything else besides themselves. They roam around to smell every corner, continuously make up rumors, and make big, overpowering gestures to hide their weakness and vulnerability. They disguise into tough and aggressive characters, but they are hiding a vulnerable ego that easily gets heartbroken. He says that these deformed and distorted characters are what are hidden inside the modern people who isolate themselves from the world and communication. Then, he reveals the images that are hidden deep inside each individual. The hidden desires that would be known and kept by each individual are realistically unveiled too suddenly and create uncanny emotions. These uncanny bodies are smaller than real-life and seem to be able to confront if you approach, but the body parts that are expanded and expressed very realistically, unlike the skin as rough and coarse as cracked tree barks, make you want to neglect and hide them again.
Xooang Choi pushes us to confront what are hidden deep inside us rather than running away from them. He urges us to see how we are suffocating in this tightly woven society, failing to communicate with anybody, thus isolating ourselves. He tells us that the isolated isles will be reconnected for communication only when each of us talk about, confront, and admit our problems.
