I M EVERYWHERE, Year: 2018, Running time:  ∞, Video excerpt at SITE gallery Four, Oh Four!, Duration:4:04 minutes

“I M EVERYWHERE” is a text-based mixed media installation inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from underground.
It consists of seven parts: M1 to M7 with each representing seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, speaking and writing, respectively. 

I M EVERYTHERE 是一个文字影像装置,受启发于陀思妥耶夫斯基的《地下室手记》.
作品有七个部分:M1至M7,分别代表:视,听,嗅,触,尝,说和写。

 

The signified and signifier were purely psychological; they were form rather than substance. The signifier is interpreted as the material form (something which can be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted) and the signified as the mental concept.

意指和能指纯粹是心理上的;它们是形式而不是实质。能指 被解释为物质形式(可以被看见,听到,触摸,闻到或品尝的东西),而 意指 为心理概念。

 

 

The first five parts explore human subjectivity by consciously suppressing the senses. The underground man in Dostoevsky's novel tries to rebel against both reason and desire to achieve absolute freedom. I extended this theme to human perception, studied via conscious suppression of senses to address the narrator's notion of absolute freedom(freedom from both reason and desire) , and by raising questions: Can we limit our perception, and therefore transcend it? Since our senses are given, and feelings are triggered through our senses, can “I” exist beyond perceptions, or can we choose not to feel through our senses? Or can we only exist under the restrictions of our perception, and to what extent are we “free”?

前五部分通过对感官的压制来探索人类主体性和自由。陀思妥耶夫斯基小说的主人公试图同时反抗理性跟欲望来达到真正的自由。在一系列压抑感官的行为中我将这个主题延伸到人的自我感知来回应和强调小说主角的"absolute freedom"( freedom from both reason and desire):我们能不能限制感知从而超越感知,从而超越感知?因为我们的五官是被赋予的,而感知是通过五官传递的,可不可以超脱感知而存在,我们可不可以选择不去感知?是不是人只能在特定的感知之下存在,人在多大程度上是自由的?

The last two parts respond directly to subjectivity, as discussed in the book. M6 removes all the subjective words in the novel and records the computer recitation of the edited text. M7 writes all the deleted words with an unusable pen on the back of the text. By performing these action of deleting "self", the works achieve the literal meaning of “non-self”. However, at the same time, “I” am everywhere.

后两部分的主性有直接的回M6将小说中所有的主观词汇全部抽出,并录制了电脑朗诵的被编辑后的文本。M7 将所有被删除的全部词汇用一只不可用的笔写到文本的背面。通过删除来达到文本意义上的无我。而同时,又无处不在.

The following texts are showing on the monitors:

M1: “Seeing- Eyes covered with an eye-mask then read the text. (Participant is aware of the content)”

M2: “Hearing- Using noise-canceling headphones while listening to noise muted.”

M3: “Smelling- Wearing a nose clip while smelling the text.”

M4: “Touching- Fail.”

M5: “Tasting- Apply a common cold or more serious medical condition involving the central nervous system.”

M6: “Speaking- Erase all subjective words.”

M7: “Writing- Write the words extracted form Notes from Underground with a broken pen.”