The State of Being Vanished (Evanescence)
No. 001–003
No. 001 1937, China
No. 002 1960s, Tibet
No. 003 2021, Google and Baidu
Artist Books
3 Artworks, 100 Editions
900×600 mm each
Cut and folded to 105×115 mm or 105×150 mm Offset Print, Hand-bound in two sizes by the artists
Exhibited at
BOOKED: Hong Kong Art Book Fair 2021 (HK)
This work underscores the transitory nature of words, thoughts, and objects when subjected to any form of censorship. It looks into the state of being vanished: it elongates the consumption process when something is being destroyed. In- stead of portraying this process as instantaneous, the work extends the consumption process of destruction, transmut- ing the fleeting yet devastating alterations into enduring artifacts–as pages, frames, and books. In doing so, it proposes the structure of a book as a tool for marking ‘time.’
It draws inspiration from banned books (No. 001, 002) and the complex network of images that constitute the internet (No. 003). By dividing and thus fragmenting these images, they are transformed into an unrecognizable book. This serves as a metaphor for the process of image destruction.
For instance, work No. 003, by using the same keyword to search on a Chinese search engine (Baidu) and a global one (Google), exposes the contrasting algorithms and the under- lying censorship structure of the internet. It draws attention to images that have been made less accessible due to censorship by rendering them as minute pixels on the canvas. Additionally, the work addresses another facet of internet cen- sorship – the phenomenon where information, memory, or history aren’t entirely deleted, but rather, submerged and overwhelmed by an flood of other information.
It draws inspiration from banned books (No. 001, 002) and the complex network of images that constitute the internet (No. 003). By dividing and thus fragmenting these images, they are transformed into an unrecognizable book. This serves as a metaphor for the process of image destruction.
For instance, work No. 003, by using the same keyword to search on a Chinese search engine (Baidu) and a global one (Google), exposes the contrasting algorithms and the under- lying censorship structure of the internet. It draws attention to images that have been made less accessible due to censorship by rendering them as minute pixels on the canvas. Additionally, the work addresses another facet of internet cen- sorship – the phenomenon where information, memory, or history aren’t entirely deleted, but rather, submerged and overwhelmed by an flood of other information.
