Still exploring the same idea: useless attempt to seek external distractions to fill my empty inside. Remembering Chalkie asked me what would be my fix for the emptiness at the critique, and I answered connection to other human beings. Then I thought that the first thing I would attempt to do was to talk to people. I thought of Tracey Emin’s work:
Text messages are probably the most common way to go to someone at the first step. Neon relies on electricity to light up, which is more related to digital texts. At the beginning I was thinking about using “Hi how are you” as the usual first sentence when I talked to someone, then I decided to use keyboard letters as it contained all possible content of communication. And I was inspired by Tishan Hsu’s installation:
Feed Forward (1989)
I was very attracted by the use of the infusion tube. It applies to the attempt of seeking external resources to fix internal problems while it’s obviously useless. So I want to use the neon tube to attach to my hand to indicate I’m trying to get external communication to make myself feel better. Then I saw the paint frame in my room. I removed the paint:
Tried to make wire letters today for neon letters:
The sense of emptiness made me think of empty hanger. I put a hanger in the frame:
The empty hanger means the clothes are being used. Putting on clothes is the necessary step to go out. It’s the second attempt. I want to create a scene of being buried in clothes, indicating the effort of trying, inspired by Francesca Woodman’s photos:
As I’m going to use white neon (I don’t want to use other color because I don’t have reason for that. Although the texts on mobile phones are black, at least texts on laptop keyboards are white), I was worried that it would not be obvious on white wall. I tried to add back the wood plate in the frame:
When I was thinking about what’s related to connection, I thought of weaving. So I want to use paper weaving in the frame and I want to weave my arms into the paper strips in the end. I use paper because it can be easily broken. And I remember there’s an artist saying paper as skin, which relates to human beings better. The action of my arms indicates the attempt of connection.
At the end, I want everything to fall to show they’re useless attempts. I still want to use daylight because daytime requires people to do things and interact with the outside world. Nighttime just looks depressive and heavy in photos, which is not the feeling I’m trying to express.
Eva Wang 