Presenting: LI Ran, Under the Rain-Sounded Effect
2015, Single Channel HD Video, Sound and color, 9 minutes
This past August, Arthub had the opportunity to see the group show Southern Wind at Antenna Space in M50, Shanghai. The varying compositions of LI Ran’s still life collages and the inclusion of the fabricated sound of rain – created with a synthesizer – made the artist’s video particularly striking. Arthub is happy to have the chance to showcase Under the Rain-Sounded Effect on our online Screening program for the month of November.
“Southern Wind” has become an expression imbued with political intentions, opposed to its previous description – a natural phenomenon. It has been mentioned, superimposed, spread, and repeated in political discourses ceaselessly. It slowly occupied people’s experience, which they then internalized in very short periods of time, eventually becoming a part of our universal values. In this sense, “Southern Wind” is not just a southern wind anymore, in fact it has nothing to do with wind direction.
– LIU Ding, Curator
For the occasion of the screening, Arthub’s Francesca Girelli has conducted an interview with the artist below.
Francesca Girelli (FG): At the beginning of Under the Rain-Sounded Effect we see several frames showing different takes of a still life display that you have composed on top of a table.
The frames coexist, appear and disappear playing and fast-forwarding at different speeds (FF x2, x4, x8, x16). What do these different paces stand for?
Li Ran (LR): The frames appear at seemingly random speeds, but the time sequence is actually based on the selection of cloth and fabric materials that appear in the video.
Looking at the different abstract patterns printed on these fabrics, I subconsciously started questioning the origin of their designs. At the same time, I began to envision the many connections that could be inspired by each still life arrangement.
For example, do the patterns I’ve chosen have some sort of co-existing temporality with Modernist abstract paintings? If not, then when and where do these patterns exist in space and time?
Modernism can be here considered as the visual identity of a certain time, if we think about it from a philosophical perspective.
Modernist patterns, or other patterns which existed in different times, as the Classical ones for example, are symptomatic of the perception of their contemporaneity. One day in Modernism was different from a day in Classicism; the sense of time was different.
So which kind of spaces does each of these patterns inhabit?
The iconic Modernist patterns of artists such as Mondrian or Pollock, distinctly different from classic historical artworks, represented their specific era. However, in the following decades they have morphed to be transformed in mass production items, stylized representations of their authors. These patterns have become a mere product from a factory adapted to the consumerist market, rather than an artistic creation.
So, what do these patterns represent now? Do they simultaneously represent different timelines through their own history?
Here the notion of “timeline” stands for “context”; do patterns crafted in the same context necessarily have the same purpose, the same core spirit?
The changing rate of speed in my video wants to present a contradiction, intended to question certain pattern classifications – like for example Modernist design– and the concept of time in regards to specific artistic movements.
FG: The work addresses issue of art display, the relationships between objects and their possible shift of significance depending on the context, as in a group exhibition for example. Why did you become interested in the practice of display?
Do you ever feel frustrated by the new configurations in which your own work appears when included in group exhibitions?
LR: Contemporary art needs context; you cannot just put something there informing people that it is art. My work is a reaction to the current Chinese contemporary art system, which reflects this de-contextualisation of art. We cannot often recognise the original essence of artworks, especially when they are included within a curatorial framework they do not see to belong to. I am criticizing this detachment.
Sometime when we look at certain artworks we have the impression that they are isolated, and meaningless. Art without context is impossible to describe, if you do not know where it comes from then you will never understand it.
In Under the Rain-Sounded Effect I have employed this form of seemingly random still lifes associations to mimic feelings of disconnection between the artwork and the artist’s intent.
No matter what the circumstances are, we will always be anxious about other people’s confusion and misunderstanding of our work, but this kind of misinterpretation could come from anywhere, not only from a certain piece being displayed in conversation with other works.
Every time I create, I consider the varying elements that will affect my exhibition, such as where the work is being presented, what kind of exhibition it is, what is the curatorial intention and motivation behind the show.
FG: Do you think that in a group exhibition the context of your work could be lost?
LR: My works are all specifically created for exhibitions; I start working on the production just after I get a commission for a new piece. My practice is very difference from, for example, that of a painter who works in his studio for days and then presents the final products in a random exhibition.
I first get the commission and afterwards, before the exhibition, I carry out a research by studying the other artists and their works, the space, the curatorial idea etc.
Some curators ask me about my studio, but I tell them that my studio is the museum. I also always consider how to manage the space; if the exhibition is in a gallery or a mall then that changes the way the works should be displayed. It is important to think about the environment and context before creating the work.
FG: While preparing the set for the video, did you pick certain objects according to their relationships with one another? Often in classic western art, especially during the Renaissance, certain objects depicted in still life paintings were invested with a particular significance, tailored to convey information either about the artist or about the person who commissioned the work. Do any of the objects you filmed have a particular significance for you? Does the magnifier have a metaphorical role in the video?
LR: What is meaningful for me in these still lifes is the setting up, the arrangement itself. The different scenes are related one another, but the meaning and core structure of each frame differs from the symbolism used in Renaissance or in the Surrealist movement. My still lifes mimic forms of communication, including information presented in partial form, periodically, discontinuously, hesitatingly, and in a superficial format.
I am just mimicking different forms in which information is conveyed.
At the same time, what I want to stress, is that too often in today’s world we read creative practices as being direct by-products of the digital era.
I disagree with this notion, because in fact, as early as in the 1980s in China, in poems, literature and contemporary art, we can find the expression of similar feelings to the ones I am now considering in my work. Hence, the discourse addressing different attitudes towards the way in which we process knowledge and information has existed for a long time.
Of course my work has been influenced by the Internet era, but I do not want to define my artwork as being a mere result of living in a digital age.
In regards to the forms of partial, periodical and discontinuous communication, could you give examples from the 1980s that were presented similarly?
In the1980s China was witnessing the end of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of the Reform and Open Policy. There were many existing fractures between old and new China. Many things needed to be rebuilt and recovered, including the rediscovery of the 1930s Romanticism, whose active protagonists were gradually dying in the 1980s. That time became a period of rejuvenation; people active in the arts needed to mend and reshape what had been lost during the Cultural Revolution.
In the Internet era we are now experiencing a similar situation. Artists from the 1980s did not have a holistic idea or concept about what had come before them, or about the influences of the western world. That is why their approaches were sporadic and discontinuous. I want to highlight that, even if today we are bombarded with a massive amount of information every second, we are still unable of developing systematic and comprehensive methods of exchange, just like the 1980s.
We cannot define all the artworks produced now as being mere influences of the world’s digitization, because comparative notions of creativity, appropriation and recovery can be repeatedly seen in the past several decades.
FG: The sound is obviously very important in this work. You employed a rain sound-effect produced with a synthesizer –which also gives the title to the piece– that sounds particularly real. But furthermore, throughout the video, the beat of the music goes accordingly to the popping up-rhythm of the different images. What is the relationship here between images and sound, and is it linked to issues of nature and representation, real and fake?
LR: The rain sound is from my acoustic collection, all machine made effects. These fake noise are a metaphor for the current art industry.
The art of today is plagued with so many problems and questions, but they are only pseudo queries, just like the rain we hear in the video, viewers are not actually experiencing the true feeling of rain. So I have created a rain that is devoid of reality.
In any case, I do not want to overemphasize the effects of sound in my work. Sound makes people feel differently depending on their experience, so there is no need to define its presence with words.
The sound is important, but should not be over described. Anyone can have a personal interpretation according to the uniqueness of individual perception and reaction. There is no philosophical or analytical intention behind it.
FG: The blue backdrop on which the still life scenes appear and disappear reminded me of a computer desktop. When I saw this work for the first time it visually reminded me of Camille Henrot’s Grossue Fatigue… If it is true that the frames popping up in your video reference Internet windows or the digital exploration of the world we live in, what are your concerns about it?
LR: While the blue backdrop may appear to be a desktop, these scenes are not captured from a computer screen. I actually used relatively traditional VCR collage, so the overlapping still lifes are not referencing the Internet.
What indeed influenced me, was the split screen technique used in movie productions. This very dramatic stylistic language was already used in early movies made on celluloid film. This effect could render a parallel occurrence in time, enriching the narrative effects.
The blue backdrop is meant to mimic the initial image you see when you turn on a projector.
This work relates to my previous production, especially to my efforts of mimicking and restoring. The video is like a reflection of a mirror that replicates the reality I see. The only difference is that, in fact, it is not just a flat mirror but has also a performative component –the mimicry. Viewers must interpret the messages I have hidden backstage.
In my earlier artistic practice my artworks were mainly based on performance. I mimicked the way people talked, I was performing a role, impersonating old movies characters, for example.
On the other hand, restore refers to a return to the real situation I am mimicking and to its conditions and context.
I reflect my own reality like a mirror.
