Written by | Qiu Shuwan
Source | Interface art
"I'm not against taking pictures, (taking pictures) shows that everyone cares about this matter, and then think about it." At the opening ceremony of the "Rong-Source" space art exhibition, the exhibition creators said in an interview with the Interface News Art Channel.
The "RONG-Yuan" space art exhibition is a special exhibition born during the epidemic. One of the special ones is that the entire exhibition has 9 major sections and 7 major spaces, borrowing the combination of art and science and technology, and conveying only one theme - the relationship between man and nature. In particular, its expression is very contemporary, mainly including images, performances, performances, sculptures, new media installations, etc., but the creators come from the collective rather than from an individual. The third special thing is that the works are not entirely artificially created, but also come from nature and disappear with the exhibition. The fourth special is that the entire exhibition is not only full of beautiful immersion created by sound and light, but also has human humanistic thinking about nature. The attitude that the audience feels from the exhibition is open, equal, and free, and there is no so-called authoritative answer and standard understanding.
These special points seem to point to the allegorical meaning of the name of the exhibition, RONG - can be understood as melting, dissolving, melting, rong, rong, etc., similar pronunciation and different meanings form the openness of the theme, and different people's experience and thinking about the space art exhibition will make the extension of the theme of "RONG" more abundant and more concrete. The participatory nature of this exhibition can be seen from the theme, and in fact, participation forms the basic characteristics of this exhibition.
Most of the exhibitions are composed of spatial and material works. After 2 years of discussion and preparation, from Shanghai Chongming to Kailash in Tibet, the main creative artists and the documentary film crew have gone through 20,000 kilometers, climbed 5,300 meters, spanned 10 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and created from various dimensions such as time length, geographical location, and cultural differences, and strive to make the works accurate and open, so that the audience can have both an immersive experience and a spiritual reflection at the exhibition site.
Exhibition entrance
As Zhang Zikang, curator of the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, wrote in the preface to the exhibition: "When the global epidemic raged in 2020, the academic community around the world sighed: after 2020, the world has changed!" Since then, we have entered a phase that the media has called the "post-pandemic era", but the real situation in today's world is that we are still plagued and challenged by the fluctuating epidemic. "Post-pandemic" is not the status quo but more like an ideal. When we look back at the development of the world since the new century, the two major global epidemics are undoubtedly timely reminders and warnings for us in the development process: how do we live by ourselves, how to get along with others, and how to get along with nature, these three issues have always been accompanied by the development of human civilization, the process of globalization, and we must learn to live by ourselves in today's epidemic era. ”
The three main creative artists of the "RONG-Source" Space Art Exhibition are not only the participants, observers, recorders and feedbackers of social development, but also the experiencers and actors of this epidemic. To this end, Interface Art conducted an exclusive interview with Qin Ling, one of the three main creative artists.
Interface Art: Can you talk about the origins of this project?
Qin Ling: The cause of the project came from a brainstorming between Baishui, Gong Shijun and me, when everyone talked about the possibility of public welfare activities in the field of people's inner spiritual construction, so everyone thought of using a public welfare art project as the beginning of a "public welfare to beauty", which lasted for two years of thinking, and finally presented the "Rong Yuan" space art exhibition.
Affected by the epidemic, let us rethink people's posture in front of nature, from strong dominance to reverence for equality. Most of the exhibitions are composed of space and material works, and all the components and equipment of the works exceed more than 10,000 pieces. The 9 major sections are distributed in 7 major spaces, in order of viewing order, 1 "Overture - Misty Forest", 2 "Pillar of Light", 3 "Wings of Wind", 4 "Tea Room of Light", 5 "Melter of Light", 6 "Raindrops", 7 "Computing Light and Shadow", 8 "Epilogue - Cave of Light", 9 "Tidbits". In terms of form, natural space images will be used to map to the exhibition space, which uses a lot of technical means. For example, "Computing Power Light and Shadow" is an intelligent interactive work, which uses pictures taken in the Ali area and Shanghai in August 2021, and calculates the noise capture at the exhibition site in real time, making the picture unpredictable. Every interaction between the viewer and the work affects the evolution of the program's operations. It is a reminder of our current social behavior and external nature.
The back of the exhibition work "Computing Power Light and Shadow"
The exhibition work "Computing Power Light and Shadow" is on the front
Interface Art: The backgrounds of the three main creators of this project team are very cross-border, and you are a professional background in glass ceramics, can you talk about why you are involved?
Qin Ling: The glass ceramics major is my teaching professional background, as a materials science major, in this exhibition, I will combine materials science and art technology, in the form of space installation art to explore the current situation of human beings facing the present, when all order is broken, choose to put in front of everyone, how people's hearts should return to self-consistency, face the self, face the unknown, face the nature how to find a balance.
Exhibition works: "Melter" series Summerhill
The material of this work uses many natural elements, whether it is wind, water, fog, ice or light, it is a medium of expression for creation. In the face of nature, many feelings of any person, whether he has a corresponding knowledge structure or not, whether he has racial beliefs or not, are empathetic. It's like "picking flowers and smiling": when we smell the flowers and feel the wind blowing on our faces, common emotions and feelings will arise naturally, and no instruction manual is required. So natural elements are sometimes more effective mediums, we want to talk in a simpler and more equal way, and the perception of ideas and media is not from the accumulation of a particular knowledge experience, but from the natural perception system, these things are common things in life, but after artistic translation, there may be another layer of meaning. The exhibition also hopes to achieve this effect, such as children think it is funny, some people think it looks good, and some people will think.
The scene of the Cow's performance in the exhibition "Raindrops"
Interface Art: "Rong Yuan" is a romantic experiment against mechanical naturalism. How do you interpret this definition? What role does the artist play in this?
Qin Ling: Our value system often gives us some wrong judgments. "Humans are privileged relative to other creatures," or this elitist thinking, will influence the development of civilization. The mechanistic view of nature holds that man and nature are separate and opposed, and that nature has no value, and only man has value. The mechanistic view of nature developed anthropocentric values, which provided the ethical basis for man's unrestricted exploitation, plundering, and manipulation of nature.
Geography and climatic perspectives aside, "Rong Yuan" is a romantic experiment against mechanical naturalism. Romance is an important thing, a source of poetry. For example, Li Bai's poetry. In this exhibition, "Wings of the Wind" is a work created after feeling the prayer flags in Tibetan areas. The prayer flag is full of scriptures and blessings, with the meaning of blessing, without consuming natural resources, whenever the wind blows the prayer flag, the blessing will float in all directions, which is the simplest romantic expression. We wanted to do a translation of this romance, so we recorded the speed, humidity, and temperature of the winds per second, and then re-interpreted them in a contemporary formal language through intelligent calculations.
"Wings of the Wind" records the data of the wind blowing the prayer flag, and converts it into the kinetic energy of the on-site mechanical device after it has been calculated, so that the light changes freely with the rhythm. It uses contemporary technology to translate the romantic expression of the prayer flag, and whenever the wind blows and the prayer flag is raised, it is a blessing to the world.
Because of their special beliefs and geographical conditions, the mountain ranges in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region still exist as safe areas, perhaps not only safe areas for the epidemic, but also spiritual safe areas. Take "Pillar of Light" as an example, the Yangtze River water is filtered and purified to make a 175 cm high and 45 cm wide, flat and neat triangular ice cube, going back and forth between Shanghai and Ali, and not letting the ice cube melt – only human technology can do this. We initially wanted to take this ice from the mouth of the Yangtze River to Kailash and then let it melt naturally in this place. But local culture and religion do not allow it, believing that the sacred mountain needs to be humbled in front of it. We did a lot of communication with the local and still couldn't make it happen. In the end, a compromise plan was made, using the ice cubes on the car to melt naturally and sprinkle it all the way on the road, which also became another kind of romance. I thought this was the simplest thing, but it was the most difficult, including the late state of melting ice in Shanghai, not our most ideal melting effect, it felt like nature was not very cooperative, so we chose to obey and pull back to an equal relationship.
Pillars of Light chronicles the refraction and disappearance of ice cubes, and the work accomplishes a seemingly futile feat: the artist takes fifteen cans of river water from Wusongkou and freezes them into huge three-sided icicles, transports them from Shanghai to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and brings the ice to Kailash, the center of the world. He also took water from the Ma Pan Yong Cuo Sacred Lake in Taqin and brought it back to Shanghai to freeze into icicles, so that the pure water of Taqin was irrigated on the land at the mouth of the Chongming Yangtze River. It explores the relationship between existence and time by recording the refractive light and disappearance of ice cubes in specific fields.
The NYU Shanghai Dance Creation Class performed live in Pillar of Light
Doing things that seem useless, but in fact, it also brings us to reflect together. Mount Everest is 8848 meters, kailash is not as high as it is, but humans have never climbed it. It is not that human beings do not have the ability to climb it, but in many surrounding religions, they believe that it is a holy mountain, and people cannot climb it. In today's technology, it is not difficult for humans to climb this mountain, and why it has not done so shows one thing: faith is sometimes a force in itself, and this power is sometimes not countered by technology and material.
The mighty civilization of mankind was short and insignificant in the face of nature. How many years Kailash has stood in that place, I can't say for sure, but the existence of human beings may be in front of the sacred mountain for a short moment, just like we have developed in the whole earth or the universe. We bring such a piece of ice to this place and let it melt slowly, in fact, we also let ourselves do a release.
Human beings entered the agrarian society from the early safari state, entered the industrial age, and then developed to this day. This development is actually a trade-off of species capabilities. We now live in a reinforced concrete house, which is convenient for life and well protected by various technologies. While protection is increasing, individual viability may be lost. The sense of superiority of human beings is due to various other auxiliary conditions, which are fragile and may collapse in an instant.
The artist is a questioner in this, providing only a spatial field of thinking, not giving an answer, allowing the audience to mobilize the inner perceptual system, self-cognition, and self-interpretation. The work itself is also an expression, so I am not against many people taking pictures to show that everyone cares about this matter and then think about it. The underlying logic of our exhibition is philosophical, but we can't ask questions at the beginning, many things don't need language, language is limited. For example, when we face nature, feelings come first, and language is useless.
Interface Art: What are the moments that impress you most during the execution of a collective project?
Qin Ling: There are too many beautiful moments, such as taking water in Wusongkou, listening to the wind under Ali's night sky, and brainstorming with the team's friends, etc., but the most special thing is that in this project, every member contributes wisdom to the promotion of the project, this art project was initiated by our three main creative artists, and invited Zhang Zikang as a curator, composed of Cui Yujie, Gu Yaofeng, Wulin and He Jin, and a large number of video records were made by Liu Feifang Film Studio. Irish artist Dave does intelligent computing technical support, as well as a large number of logistics support team, and the previous artistic creation by the artist to lead the creation and rhythm of the comparison, this time more like a crew, everyone united for a common goal and work, the result of the presentation is also a team of strength display, this is a very interesting way of creation.
At the same time, the space design this time is very much coordinated by many types of work, and the whole construction is different from the traditional exhibition exhibition. Because the media used in the work are very diverse, it requires us to think more comprehensively about space. Entering the space of the person, we cannot give a preset. So we're thinking about constructing a general way of perception.
The atmosphere of the exhibition hall carries an equal dialogue between man and nature, not anthropocentrism, but a return to a sense of awe and gratitude. For example, in the creation of the Tea Room of Light, the projection above is Kailash's sky, and in the most daily behavior of human beings, it is important to generate an opportunity to dialogue with nature.
Exhibition "Tea Room of Light"
Lead artist Bai Shui and the work "Tea Room of Light"
There is also the light melter series "Blades of Grass", which originates from a tribute to the nameless and weak forces around us.
Before the cold winter came, the creators collected a lot of unknown dry grass on the side of the road or in the wilderness, took photos and records, and then used high-temperature glass melt to freeze the life of the four-dimensional space into a two-and-a-half-dimensional light and shadow, leaving traces of life for the nameless weeds that are about to disappear through the transformation of materials, just like some chapters in the long river of time, unheard of but indeed true.
The work wants to convey a concept of time, the experience is real, but the material moment is gone, which is a partial philosophical thinking.
The collection of grass leaves in the series of works "The Melter of Light"
Interface Art: What are some of the things that you've never experienced before, or something special about it compared to previous art projects?
Qin Ling: This exhibition is different from some previous exhibitions, it has a big theme, that is, how people live by themselves in the changes in the external environment. In addition, in the past, more attention was paid to the completion of the work, but this time it was more focused on a process, because some of the works disappeared, such as ice. This elevates the material language to a pure concept.
Exhibition "Misty Forest"
The exhibition is divided into seven major sections, nine spaces, its structure is a bit like a drama, the whole experience process, the work is like a drama, one scene after another. We hope that the audience and the work can really establish dialogue and communication, and these interactions are actually combined with the spatial experience, an open and flat way of communication. Unlike the thinking mode of the works on the shelf, the clues of this exhibition are combined with its space and the work as a whole, all of which are designed to create a continuous thinking environment together.
The scene of the exhibition work "The Cave of Light"
Different from the previous way of creation, this artistic creation is a way of teamwork, we do not only think about the problem from the professional field of ourselves, but also consider the viewer as a pluralistic unknown object, treat everyone equally, do not output subjective answers, and the creator and the viewer enjoy equal interpretation rights.
Exhibition Title: "RONG-Source" Space Art Exhibition
Exhibition time: December 25, 2021 - February 25, 2022
Visiting time: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00
Exhibition venue: Hall 6, Shanghai Baolong Art Museum, No. 3055 Caobao Road, Minhang District, Shanghai (near Xinzhen Road).