The body is the vehicle of life. All human praxis requires the presence of a body. For a long segment of history, the body was seen in opposition to spirit and suffered neglect or disparagement because of its inborn desires could not help but lead people astray from truth and moral conduct. At present, however, considerable attention is devoted to the body, and to an extent it has become an important object of human praxis, at the societal, familial and individual level. Proceeding stage by stage, people engage in acts of production and intervention revolving around the body. From the day of birth, people's bodies enter into a constant process of being shaped. Medicine shapes the body for health; sports shape the speed and strength of physique; the fashion industry shapes a bodily aesthetic; education and the family shape its deportment and behavior. Various forms of praxis are enacted on the body, and under a variety of pretexts the body is protected, corrected and ornamented: at the same time, it takes on deep imprints. The body becomes a tabla rasa on which successive events are etched. From these markings we can read an individual's history; we can peer into an individual's secrets; we can even see fate through the body. Oscar Wilde remarked that only an unperceptive person does not judge someone by his/her exterior. A person's exterior is a body, and by means of this surface, which is constantly marked by exercise of power, we can guess a person's class, profession and educational level; we can see indications of personality, temperament and taste, wherein an individual's uniqueness is found.
It seems that we can no longer imagine a body in its original state, a pristine body untainted by worldly influences. The body is no longer a purely biological entity; it is no longer a merely medical concept, or a zone of secrets. Instead it is a site thoroughly mediated by culture, a complex, clamorous signifying system. The body always carries a message; it makes statements constantly and garrulously.
The body was once an important premise for Xiang Jing's creative works. This premise implies familiarity with topography of the body, with forces that shaped its features and physical traits. Creative work that revolves around the body has to be empirical. Among Xiang Jing's works related to the body, the most