Presenting:
Inspiration Chapter 1: White Dragon, 2017
HD video, color, sound, 2’09”
Inspiration Chapter 2: Emergency Exit, 2017
HD video, color, sound, 14’19”
Inspiration Chapter 3: Length Wave, 2018
HD video, color, sound, 18’58”
Arthub is honored to present artist Li Ming’s “Inspiration” series 3 chapters with artist’s own explanation and the background of the creation.
1
Chapter 1 was shot in Yuanjiang, Hunan, my original hometown. This is a film tributes to Dadaism, also a conversation with myself in the past.
I stood on the opposite of the park, on the zebra-stripes on the road. They were freshly washed. There are 6 Chinese ornamental pillars in the distance. When I was watching this scene, it reminds me of “Nude Descending the Stairs” and how the women move in the image.
When I was making this film, I wished I could produce a pure imagination, as it is merely another form to fill the time. I rented a white horse, and riding around the road. Then I export this footage with 29 FPS and reorganized with another speed to make a frame by frame animation, which as a result, formed a white dragon due to the white traces of the horse’s movement.
I used a soundtrack of a found clip of Dopler Effect as the base, and morphed it with Doppler Effect in the editing software, to complement the imagery of the flying dragon.
2
When I was making “Inspiration Chapter 2”, I was trying some new ideas. The “new” is referring to get rid of the conventional thoughts in my past, some personal experience. I opened another door for myself, and intervene my creation from another perspective.
Based on the situation of the creation, I would like to name my methodology of making “Inspiration Chapter 2” an “escapism”, which means I put down the past reliable experience and not talking to anyone during this process. I almost didn’t go to anywhere during that half a year, seeing very limited same group of people, and even the gallerist who will present my artworks knew nothing about it. And in fact, I didn’t know where my purpose was. But during the making of this artwork, all my friends, co workers, family member were supporting me, as they guaranteed that “I can make it through this time”. They always give me help whenever I asked for. It felt exactly like the clip I quote in the video (A Man Escaped, Robert Bresson, 1956), when the protagonist Fontaine escaped the Nazi jail successfully, besides the support from his jail mate, Fontaine’s persistent spirit was the actually his faith, acted as catalyst and yeast of his journey.
But Fontaine from A Man Escaped was merely a shallow metaphor, just like all the scenes about jails in Hollywood, where the prisoners’ angry stare at the cameras shaped their stereotypes. I had to use stereotypes to represent that period of time of mine, because I couldn’t find other well-known sophisticated references to compare. In the beginning of the movie, it is written:
“This story is true. I give it as it is, without embellishment”.
In my studio, I spent my days almost in a same way. I appeared in the same place at the same time with same scenario, keeping the same daily status. I had plenty of time to think about the past., there were so many things flashback in my brain, some images that influenced me on my art experience. I remember that when I was a teenager at school, there were some memories that I wouldn’t want to think about, such as examinations. I wanted to remove this suffering memory. I almost forgot all the knowledge that I had to remember for the sake of examinations, the knowledge which can determine millions people’s destiny. They disappeared just like making a joke. This memory was so vacant and numb. It is just an action form underneath this specific memory. The frame of the action form seems like crystalised in the fluid of time. We were just a “living form” at that time.
3
A: Haven’t been this high for so long. I’m still feeling a bit chilly down there. My hands are cold, mostly.
B: The gaming experience is like an extreme sport designed for index finger to click the mouse. When the game comes to-wards the end, you would realise you don’t need the visuals, you are like an athlete focusing on the dynamics between the finger and the mouse, and persevere in keeping this dynamics to the extreme! The frequency of clicking my index finger controlled by my nerves is so poor compared to a machine. It took no more than 2 minutes before I got the feeling that my index finger didn’t belong to me anymore. I reckon it must have surrendered.
Speaking of index finger, I have a story about index finger to tell.
“It was a true story.”
In an extremely cold winter, my younger brother, a chubby little boy in an indigo jacket at his six years old, might still be wearing that apron sewed by grandma. This kind of apron is usually very decent looking, and could only be made with fabrics used by adults at the tailor shop.
Don’t forget, it was an extremely cold winter. No cats and dogs seen on the street, sometimes one could see a frightened black chicken. Its dark-red crest looks like a gigantic pair of testicles hanging on the neck, dazzling against the white back-ground of the snow. “I’m telling a story about ‘forgetting index finger’”, during that winter, southerners would rather leave their hands at home when going out.
Unbeknownst to his parents, the kid sneaked into the kitchen, picked up an iron kitchen knife that’s heavier than his hands combined. The knife was sharpened to reveal a dazzling snowy white colour. When looking up close, the delicate patterns on the blade shimmered with a silver lustre, as if it had been sharpened by a steel sponge. You must have smelled the smell of iron in winter? You must have also tried the sugar tomatoes cut by the knife that had just filleted a fish.
“There was a big ceramic water vat outside the kitchen. We weren’t able to see the mouth of the vat when we were little, and didn’t know how tall we had to grow before we could see the reflection of our faces in the vat.”
Long long time ago,
When I went out,
……,
The environment had changed real fast. It was hard to imagine the kind of experience that I had been through. The sort of image quality and texture would be so out of fit in today’s system, like “a soliloquy of a film roll waiting to be used by a suitable film.” Yes, there was a massive vat on my way to school when I was little. It was at a weird position where it was placed. It stood right next to the road, when the sky turned dark, it looked like a chubby kid waiting to cross the road.
At the first couple of days nobody paid attention to it.
A heavy rain lasted for two weeks during the rainy season. The vat was filled with rain and became even heavier. Hardly anyone was able to move it. After a while, the people from town left it alone. Sometimes one could see a few fitness coaches moving the vat, and once two coaches performed “move the vat by 45cm” to a girl, and finished the performance by moving it back to where it was together with a roar. After they left, I liked to look at the marks on the ground that were left by the vat. These changes of positions made a lot of overlapped and intersected circles. A long time had passed, everyone forgot who did the vat belong to, and no one dared to move it an inch. I remember that vat became terrifying after a while, weeds started to grow, insects frequented, and some sugarcane skins floated on the water. After a long summer’s sun, the rain in the vat vaporised little by little, and the weeds, bugs, sugarcane skins and household waste were mixed into a battered dish, every object was covered by this medium-green colour. The interior of the vat was also very pretty after being exposed to the sun for a long time.
There was rain in late autumn too, and the vat was almost filled with water. It became very clean in winter, looking as dull as a man in a dark suit.
Under the pale grey sky, looking down at the vat, I laid my hands on its rim and stuck my head in, and could still see the reflection of my face very clearly.
I spoke in the vat and was able to hear the delayed feedback of my voice, as well as some moist flanger effects. I can tell you more details: the sound in the vat can be crisp and clear when you drop a stone in it. That would be a fun event. The vat was a very big toy.
It was another extremely cold winter.
I can no longer find any materials in my head about the vat next to the road.
I can only remember one story out of all that had to do with the vat happened in that winter. When my younger brother was little, he wanted to eat the sugarcane, so he went to granny’s kitchen by himself and took a kitchen knife to cut the cane, which instead almost cut off his index finger. According to my parents, my brother’s index finger was cut into two halves and barely connected by a piece of skin. He didn’t cry when we found him. He washed his hand in the vat outside the kitchen, and the whole vat of water turned red. At least 20 years has past, and I never saw the scar on my brother’s finger. However, it should be more or less the same position as the scar on my right index finger.
About artist
Born in 1986 in Yuanjiang, Hunan Province and graduated from China Academy of Art, Li Ming currently lives and works in Hangzhou, China. His recent solo presentations include: “MEIWE”, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015); and “Mediation”, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2014). His recent group exhibitions include: “No Walk, No Work”, Centre d’Art Contemporain Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland (2016); “Why the Performance?”, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai (2016); “Turning Point: Contemporary Art in China since 2000”, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2016); “Hybridizing Earth, Discussing Multitude”, Busan Biennale (2016); “TUTORIALS—Moving Images and a User’s Guide from China”, Museo Pino Pascali, Polignano a Mare, Italy (2016); “WE—A Community of Chinese Contemporary Artists”, Chi K11 Art Space, Shanghai, China (2016); “Essential Matters—Moving Images from China”, Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul (2015); Shenzhen Biennial (2014); “Pandanonium”, Momentum, Berlin (2014); “The Popular Tree and Mirror”, International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (2014); “28 Chinese”, Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2014); and “On | Off” at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013).