The material form of a wandering flow, a prototype

A project by MFA student CHEN Lei, which I supervise, seeks the interflow between the concrete and the abstract. Abolishing visual hierarchies, the impermance of perceptual states took over representation.

Here's the link to a prototype of the work-in-progress:


Some thoughts on the work:
...The attempt to blend the work via water and its flow would necessarily create tension with the pursuit for multiplicity in an intensified mode of attentiveness to images and to the world. The former suggests unity, the latter suggest clashes, conflicts, paradoxes, which could be closer to the philosophical exploration of cognition/perception... Even when the city is the same, we attend to different details differently. When we see the same thing twice, we see very different things.

I agree with the intention to stick to the "appearance" of things and stay away from hermeneutics or representational values. The idea of "energy" in the Chinese context is perplexing -- it is not about material, nor is it about emotions/feelings or ideas.

There is definitely the need to start thinking about sound -- NOT MUSIC! -- or to decide from the very beginning that there would be no sound. If it is decided that the piece is silent (-- silence is a form of sound!), then building in silence or unheard sound into the visual work should be a contemplated choice. The absence of sound should be a deliberate, active absence/presence.