The Terrace

Installations
Screen, speakers, single-channel video, light, music, sound, texts, 2021

The outdoor terrace on the fourth floor of the Changjiang Art Museum was rebuilt as a specific place to unfold the local imagination about the Eastern Heights community. Terrace, aside from symbolizing the development of the western urbanization lifestyle, is an early form of the theatrical stage in China, related also to the village form. Inviting the audience and community residents to stand on the Museum’s terrace and look around the Eastern Heights community, which is still under construction, the artist attempts to motivate the public to think about where they are. An installation set that consists of four individual works, namely What is This Place, Imaginary Landscape I, and Imaginary Landscape II and The Way Back Home, the entire work manipulates terraces and outdoor balconies as a complete spatial layout. In the form of light, installation, sound, music, video, text, and other types of media, “place” is heard, observed, narrated, and imagined anew. Space is transformed into a “place” only when people establish a sense of belonging with their personal experiences and emotions. By projecting his imagination of the local community and Taiyuan, the artist wishes to rebuild this place by provoking local imagination.

“What is This Place?”

Installations: Neon billboard, speakers，music, sounds, copper plate etching texts，2021
Soundtrack: “Geographies of the Body”.Cicadas, rain, wind, environmental sounds, impromptu piano, and synthesizer.

This is a private record of local imagination and experience that the artist shares as a short-stay outsider, after wandering for three days in the Eastern Heights community and its nearby areas where the Museum locates. This work consists of three parts. Creating a neon light text installation of “What is This Place?” in the style of his handwriting, the artist poses the question to the audience, residents of the community, and also to himself by hanging the billboard high above the outer wall of the terrace, facing the residential areas. The texts etched on the copper plate present a self-made “local soundscape field observation table” and nine “texts on private places” selected and written based on the artist’s wandering experience. After returning to his Beijing studio, the artist improvised ambient music in accordance with his text writing and field recording, creating a sound installation that he considers as an emotional response to his wandering in the field. This music, combined with the surrounding daily soundscapes of the community, forms a new acoustic milieu. Neon lights, text, music, and sound transform the Museum’s terrace into a new “theatrical stage” for the local community.

Imaginary Landscape I

Sound Installation: Wood pavilion, speakers, indicator light, music, sounds，2021
Soundtrack: Stones, waters, fires, environmental sounds. Impromptu orchestral instruments, and synthesizer. Female voiceover.

Imaginary Landscape I attempts to open up the possibilities of imagination towards a place. The I and II are two juxtaposed works. Influenced by the traditional Chinese pavilions and the WWII bunkers remaining in Taiyuan, the artist sets up on the terrace, facing the community, an enclosed observation pavilion that possesses several narrow windows. Upon entering the dark pavilion, the audience can watch the Eastern Heights community and the light projection within the limited space while listening to a sound narrative via speakers, reimagining where they are. The artist improvised music based on a fictional text about the community that he makes up. Incorporating with field recording, the story is conveyed to the audience through a female voiceover. This story is about soil, masonry, weeds, crickets, and birds that mingle with history, present situation, and the future, thus reimagining the possibilities of placemaking by the local people.

Imaginary Landscape II

Video with sound: Screen, music, sounds, 2021
Soundtrack: This is an electroacoustic music soundtrack created based on field recording. The recording material includes sounds of: traffic, on-site construction, afternoon showers, gongs and drums rehearsal, old people singing, slapping bridges, elevators up and down, stroking iron bells, swallow tweets, water roaring, etc. Other music includes, improvised orchestral music, piano and synthesizer.

The artist found the vlogger “ Taiyuan Street Shooting” Xiao Yu on the Internet, a Henanese who has lived in Taiyuan for more than ten years and is engaged in rainproof maintenance. Walking through the city of Taiyuan as part of his job, Xiao Yu is interested in taking videos every day to introduce what he sees in the city. His nearly 4,000 online short videos demonstrate all aspects of Taiyuan from an ordinary perspective. The artist selected about 200 short videos, editing the image to integrate with his music improvised based on his impressions towards the city, thus restructuring a new narrative video placed in parallel to the scenery of the Eastern Heights community. With multiple images of Taiyuan interlaced and superimposed, people get a chance to listen to, see and imagine the city anew.

The Way Back Home

Conceptual work 2021 
 
Eastern Heights community faces various problems at its early stage of construction owes to the process of urbanization. Architects make a lot of effort concerning the community-building and thus positioning Yangtze Art Museum as an open “parlor” that connects the community to the urban city. A staircase entryway uprising from the street is designed to bridge the terrace on the second floor to the residential community, creating a public area where residents can use freely and via which, to reach their homes. Upon the request of the artist, this passage, which was closed due to various reasons, is now re-opened during the exhibition period, to keep the residents’ way home unimpeded.