Daisuke Kosugi

Daisuke Kosugi works with film, performance, text, sound, and sculpture to express dislocated subjectivities within a normalised social milieu. Through layers of fiction and non-fiction, Kosugi constructs seductive scenarios that entail an underlying conflict between personal freedom and systems. Questioning the role of empathy in contemporary society, Kosugi often works closely with his family members and other individuals to explore their inner lives, guiding audiences through intimate experiences where conflict is rendered bodily and emotionally.

The film Invisible Touch, 2024, commissioned by AGWA and Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, stages a series of tantrums in the everyday life of Norwegian 7-year-old Luka. These tantrums unfold in various public and private settings in which the primary conflict between the child and parent is physically and emotionally escalated through repetition, rhythmic editing, and alternating distance. Luka’s character is derived from Kosugi’s interest in how neurodiverse individuals often struggle to meet the behavioural expectations set by normative standards, with the causes of their challenges not always visible or clearly defined.

Inspired by the illusion breaking techniques of German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, Luka and his parent are portrayed by three different sets of actors. These shifts complicate the seemingly simple dramas, opening them to other registers of comedy and bathos. By focusing on the specificity and nuances of each performance, the film deliberately unsettles the moral response to a child’s tantrum and invites more open-ended questions around the regulation of our emotions and what it means to satisfy or frustrate our desires.