From Picture Screen to Green Screen: The Evolution of Screens

Installation view of "Paraventi: Screen", Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, 2023.11.03 – 2024.01.21 (Alessandro Wang/Photo)

The screen, at first, was meant to obscure the view, but later, this refusal to look gradually evolved into an invitation to view.

China is the homeland of screens, and the earliest known screens appeared in the late Zhou Dynasty. Originally used to help their owners abandon distractions and focus on contemplation and meditation, they gradually became one of the living furnishings of the aristocracy and literati, to isolate the space, obstruct the view and increase the sense of privacy. As the Tang Dynasty spread eastward, screens were introduced to Japan, and the Japanese often placed them in front of their homes to block the sneaky atmosphere.

Cover and hide, are all oriental interest, whether it is architecture, garden or family house, the oriental aesthetic is the most taboo "straight to the point", straight through the end of the vulgar, always build a "shadow wall" and "stone screen" to isolate the sight, that is also another sense of the screen - "Dream of Red Mansions" in order to welcome the princess of the province, a lot of effort, construction, to build a luxurious Grand View Garden. As soon as you enter the park, you will build a green rockery to cover all the scenery, Jia Zheng explained, "If it is not this mountain, once you enter the garden, all the scenery in the garden is in sight, what is the interest?" One sentence breaks the psychological motivation for the existence of the screen: to welcome and reject, the winding path leads to the secluded, "exploring the scenery and improving the ear".

By the time the screen was introduced to the West, the form and craftsmanship have been diverse, and people in the Baroque period even used it as a prop in drama and opera, whether it is to beautify the stage, remind the scene, or isolate the narrative space, the expressive ability of the screen is first-class. By the 19th century, many artists, architects, and designers had adopted this form widely, giving the screen more artistic expression. The screen thus has multiple identities: is it a painting or a sculpture? Is it art or furniture? Is it a utility or an ornament? Is it a prop or an installation?

There is no standard answer, the screen answers this unsolvable proposition with its complex and diverse attitude, and in modern society, "screen" has also been given more and more meaning. We are surrounded by all kinds of "screens", isolated, and attracted. This was the inspiration for the exhibition Paraventi: The Screen.

This is a comprehensive exhibition that shuttles between many cultures, and this one in Shanghai Prada Rong Zhai is a branch of its global exhibition, which also brings more Chinese colors. A royal rosewood screen from the 18th century conveys the most classic and elegant appearance of the Chinese screen, which is a painting screen commonly used by ancient literati and scholars, 12 screens are hinged with each other, and each other can be arranged in a word or arc, each fan board is reserved for the position of posting paintings, generally the owner will entrust the painter to customize a group of 12 paintings, painted on rice paper or silk, and then pasted on the painting screen, sometimes the owner himself is also proficient in painting, the painting screen has become an elegant prop for displaying works and enjoying the Qing Dynasty. Ancient screens were often moved, and the paintings were fragile, so the owners often removed their favorite works from the screens and framed them into scrolls for preservation, so that the paintings on the screens could be replaced frequently. Because of this, most of the surviving ancient screens do not have paintings posted on them.

Another common Chinese screen is a single vertical screen that has been in China for more than 2,000 years, usually made of stone or brick, and Rong Zhai exhibits one of the small stone screens, often for the desk, on which the inlaid stone wall has a pattern like a landscape, and also contains the ravines in the chest of the scribe's high mountains and flowing waters. This kind of small desk stone screen is not only for viewing, it has a very practical function, when the owner is writing books and paintings, the desk screen can prevent the wind from drying the ink quickly, is one of the important study rooms.

Among the many contemporary screen works in the exhibition hall, I was most amazed by the work of video artist Cao Fei, who completely transformed the No. 1 rotunda of the Rong Mansion into a green screen environment. The blue and green curtains outline the oval screens, echoing the blue-green stained glass between the window lattices of the old bungalows. There are many images on display in the exhibition hall, all of which are related to the "green screen", and it is well known that the green screen and the blue screen are important props in the imaging industry, which are often used to create virtual scenes. Cao Fei has photographed many scenes in modern life: a strong man slamming a bicycle with a green screen, a man and a woman frantically turning the green screen on public fitness equipment, a beautiful woman staring at a green screen on the beach, a blue screen and a green screen in the blue and green trash cans respectively, and a fierce woman who uses the green screen as a target in the elevator room to practice fighting, it seems to be Cao Fei herself... In all of these images, there will be intermittent images on the green screen, only to revert back to the green screen after a moment, and the cycle repeats itself, like an allegory that is both true and false, constantly reminding us that in an age of video, the images we see and see as far as the eye can see, be virtual, unreal, and untrustworthy.

Cao Fei, Screen Autobiography (Shanghai), 2023, (Courtesy of the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Spurt Marg Gallery/Photos)

But the images that appear on the green screen are precisely images from the pre-Internet era, most of which are nostalgic 1980s: the Spring Festival Gala, news broadcasts, nostalgic golden songs, female workers on the assembly line, and so on. This huge difference creates a ridiculous visual tension. The environment in which the green screen exists is absurd, but when the picture appears on the green screen, there is an era in which we still trust the image, and in that era, the image is a word of the word, a word counts. And today, these images are like ghosts, intermittently flashing on the green screen, and the green screen is full of the most incredible places, and it is also overwhelming in the exhibition hall, and many live broadcast stations are even carefully arranged in the green screen, and the audience has become an amateur anchor!

Cao Fei said that when she was a child, she saw prohibitive luxury screens in the Forbidden City, and in southern China, where she grew up, it was not uncommon to see all kinds of old-style screens carved with dragons and phoenixes, and only large families with plenty of space were worthy of using screens. But what made her feel intimate were the simple, warm screens that ordinary people could use, with pale green cotton curtains stretched on the shelves to provide the simplest shelter. People who need injections hide behind this screen and take out half of their butts for the nurse to prick... But from the perspective of the image, the "screen" in her eyes means another kind of isolation and blocking. "With the prevalence of live streaming culture, green screen technology has given screens new fluidity, uncertainty and fictionality, reshaping the world as we see it... It's like the reality behind the live video: nothing but a bare 'green screen'. ”

"As a video artist, I've long distrusted images." Cao Fei said that this is exactly what she wants to express in this group of works, "We are really living in an era when images are not credible, reality is uncertain, and every frame is different." ”

Southern People Weekly reporter Kuai Lehao