Meditation in the City Night(2019-2020)

Meditation in the City Night(2019-2020)

城市夜晚的出神 | Meditation in the City Night

Dimensions Variable, Video Installation, Seven-Channel Video (color, sound) and Mirrors

我对现代城市夜晚的视觉印象由灯光组成:交通指示灯的光、路灯的光、屏幕的光……在夜间置身于城市,便会被工业灯光环绕。灯光遵循被设定的规律流动,形成一种比白天更加秩序分明的世界。此件作品聚焦于这些灯光。人在夜晚的城市中被灯光包裹,在安宁、更加统一的夜晚,嘈杂的声音也变成一种可以让人放松的白噪音。在这样的观察中,广告牌上的信息失去了原本的意义,只作为悬置的彩色灯光出现。在冗余信息的包裹下,反而得以体会到“空”,进入一种冥想状态。
此件作品试图加强这种对城市夜晚印象,将城市中不同形态的灯光集中展现在一个较封闭的空间里,加以夜晚道路上的声音填充。空间中的墙壁皆是镜子,它们反射屏幕中出现的灯光影像,使观者可以被这样的景象完全包裹,就像身处夜晚的现代城市,在焦虑的信息中冥想、休息。

My impression of the city night is composed of lights: the light of cars, street lamp, neon signs, LED Displays … People are surrounded by artificial lights. At nights, when I am in a trance in the street, I often be immersed in observing the regular changes of the lights. 

Those lights keep changing, following a predetermined pattern, creating a more peaceful and harmonious world than daytime. During the trance, the lights mesmerize my mind, I can relax myself and enter a state close to meditation. This kind of relaxation is very precious in modern city life, where it is hard to avoid information anxiety. In this kind of viewing, the lights — originally created for the purpose of transmitting information — loses its function of expressing information and becomes a kind of pure color light. The noise of city road becomes a soothing white noise. It is like the experience that Zen can bring. 

The videos are played in a hexagonal room — three of the walls are mirrors, the other three walls are screens. The ceiling and floor are also mirror. Each screen has its own pattern, yet the patterns barely have connections between them. The inconsistency here is to inherit the nature of city lights, which differs from one to another, in the cityscape. The mirrors reflect the image on screens, the viewers will be surrounded by city lights. The different screens each show fragments of different view of city lights. 

Walking into this space, the viewers can be mesmerized by the regular changes of these lights. Rest in the meaningless colorful lights, experience the meditation even in a modern city with information anxiety.

Video (5’17”):

Render Effect (1’15”):