Archives for November 2021

Joseph Beuys is one of my favorite concept artists. He is the one who teaches me to feel an artwork instead of learning or understanding it, feelings or instincts are the keys to art. In his work “How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare 1965”, there are too many visual elements that are potentially telling ideas and stories. For three hours Beuys sat in a chair, his head smeared with honey and gold dust, the sole of his left foot was felt, the sole of his right foot was steel, holding a dead hare in his arms, mumbling, paintings hanging on the walls; When the door opened and the audience entered the room, Boyce turned his back and said nothing. Even though there is no direct communication between Beuys and audiences, which they were separated by the window and locked door, every single element of this artwork, and also the performance as a whole, is trying to tell its audiences something, trying to convince. However, the dense and tight information does not tell people something specific. 

This work reminds us of the limitations of human beings: there is a mystery in all things in the world, in the whole nature, that human beings cannot answer. The mystery is deeply rooted in human nature, but human beings cut it off by reason. Art should be felt, not trying to be understood academically or logically. “The watching in silent” reaction from the audience for 3 hours seems to be the expected reaction to an artpiece Beuys proposed. Nothing else matter but feeling when people come to art. There is no need for “explaining an artwork”

The artist and artwork I am going to share in this weekly assignment are quite different from the previous. It is not something like conceptual art or contemporary art. It is photographic art, by Stephen Shore, the photography “Uncommon place”. The whole photography consists of 61 photos that Stephen Shore took on his cross-states travel throughout the whole United States in 10 years. He tries to capture the visual elements that can represent the United States and embraces different colors back to the time when people were still framed by black-and-white photography style. 

The first thought coming to my mind when I first read this is “common”. Everything shot in Stephen Shore’s large-format camera is so common in the U.S and also in the media for non-American people to perceive and learn about America. American-style cars, hotels, gas stations, etc. Find subtle strangeness and beauty in parking lots and billboards that show what they really are; With a story to tell. In repeated viewing, new narratives evolve from the depths of each image; A parking lot speaks to the dreams of the American car industry; The billboard’s iconic image depicts the majestic mountain landscape and mocks the landscape it blocks. Here are the clues to the American dream, shrink-wrapped in intuition.

The thing really stands out for me is that Stephen Shore does provide a texture, a United States texture back to the 1980s for me. It is the texture of images, color, elements, composition; and it is also the texture of the story, which you can read something beyond the photo itself, like a story the photo tells for you. Stephen shore shot so many common things in one frame, but leave a huge space for the audience to explore the details, and imagine, generating their own understanding and impression of “what is America”. And all these thinking, or the imagination, are raised by those common things. Uncommon places, common things.

Project Description

Black Chinese is a biography film, shot with the techniques of a documentary. By applying the philosophy of Parafiction, and based on Ugandan General Yoweri Kaguta Museveni who studied Mao Zedong’s knowledge and won the Uganda Bush War from 1981 to 1986, and served as The Prime Minister of Uganda for 34 years, the film is designed to portray a fictional black character “Dilon” from Uganda who is deeply influenced by Chinese culture because of the real history and came to China to for study. The film mainly records Dillon’s Chinese life in China, why he came, how he lives and his friendships with Chinese and non-Chinese, and also his attitudes towards his own identity perception.

The fictional character Dilon is meant to be a metaphor for sarcasm the current phenomenon in China that: some Chinese are deeply influenced by American culture, mainly black culture, wishing and trying to be like a black people; and at the same time, Chinese citizens also eager for culture export, or culture invasion as America did to China. It can be concluded as “the lack of cultural confidence” and paradoxical psychological state of Chinese that Chinese people do believe in their own history and culture but do not satisfied with the fact that Chinese culture is not around the world. That’s why you can see that the foreigners who express their crazy love to China and the behavior of trying to be a Chinese go virus on Chinese social media and the Internet.

Dillon is the parallel reflection: American already has a cultural invasion of China, what if there is a cultural invasion from China to the world? Therefore, Dilon is the imagination or illusion created for different people. On the one hand, for those who are manipulated by the foreign culture, this film is expected to serve as a tool to provoke them to think about “what they look like in real people’s eyes” and “how other people feel about them” because the black Chinese Dilon is the portrayal of their behavior; on the other hand, for those Chinese who clearly realize why there is such situation in China, this film is expected to imagine and have critical thinking about “what kinds of culture exportation China needs” and “how should non-Chinese learn and enjoy China in the future”.

What is the project about? What are you trying to say with the project? 

The project is about the culture invasion situation, in which some Chinese people try to be like black people because of the influence of Hip-hop music, culture, lifestyle, and fashion, etc, and the fact behind the phenomenon that the culture export of China is not as the way of China’s economic and global status growth. Even though China did a lot in terms of spreading its culture, it is obvious that China is weak in this area. A cultural-patriotic but also paradoxical social atmosphere exists on the Chinese Internet: some Chinese are manipulated by other cultures while some Chinese are sink in the illusion that China has a great impact on the world. 

The message I want to convey through this project is that:

I want to reveal the contradictions psychological states of Chinese that we assume that we should not only just have an impact on the economy but also have a culture-wised influence around the world but the situation is not what we expected. The disconnection between the real and the imagination may cause extremely serious identity perception issues around society because the psychological states may cause two extremes: people’s cultural consciousness and identity perception is under the risk of being affected by other’ country’s cultural policy(culture invasion) and the other people may be trapped by the strong eager for spreading culture so that the eager evolved into a kind of patriotic or racist culture attitudes.

Research

Geographic and historic research:

The research of this project is mainly focusing on “how to make believe”. Since I need to have a narrative that China has a great impact and influence in the world. I started with a question like “what countries would most likely be influenced by China”. I narrow down my view to Africa because of several reasons. First and historically, China maintains a good relationship with African countries. Back in Mao’s time, Mao insisted to stand with African black people. Thanks to African countries’ help, China became a permanent member of the United Nations. Secondly and economically, the achievement of China’s economic growth may already has some impact on African society. There are many infrastructure programs of China in Africa. Thirdly and culturally, the African country is quite similar to China. Like old China, it is very poor, and Africa also has a long history and culture, but there is no chance to spread it throughout the world. It is highly likely that Africa will be influenced by foreign cultures as China is now, developed, and then was influenced by the United States.

After narrowing down to the Africa context, I need to find some real History proving that China does have some influences in Africa. Uganda and Museveni is my research result. In college, Museveni read a lot of works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Zedong. Began a radical pan-African political movement. He founded the African Revolutionary Front of University students and led student delegations to areas controlled by Frelimo in Portuguese Mozambique. There, Museveni received guerrilla training. In 1970, Museveni joined Ugandan President Milton Obote’s military intelligence service. When General Idi Amin seized power in a military coup in January 1971, Museveni and others, including President Obote, went into exile in Tanzania. In Uganda Bush War from 1980-1986, Museveni studied selected works of Mao Zedong, mobilized the masses, established bases, and organized his own army. Put forward the “top ten platform”, covering the establishment of a democratic system, to ensure the safety of person and legal property, strengthen the construction of national unity, safeguard the national autonomous, independent, integrated and self-sufficient economy and improve social services, curb corruption and abuse of power, abolish inequality, in collaboration with other African countries, and set up the system of mixed economy. And finally, he won the Bush War and became the Prime Minister of Uganda and Army General for over 34 years.

Culture Research

To make people believe that the Uganda people were influenced by China, I need to find a cultural symbol, which is iconic enough for every Chinese to quickly recognize and relate. It should be something universal in China. And I found the eyes exercise that every Chinese kid need to learn and do in the elementary educational stage.

It will also add some black humor to my film because everyone knows it.

The importance 

This project is more about delivering a message to the Chinese people. On the one hand, we need to accept and think about foreign culture critically. On the other hand, people need to think about what effect we need to achieve and what means we need to adopt when facing the needs of cultural export. Do we want people from other countries to blindly learn from China? Do we need cultural export to become a political tool to assimilate other peoples? Or do we want people from other countries to really enjoy Chinese culture? Thinking about these issues can help us better face foreign cultures. At the same time, my personal point of view is that cultural export is very important because misunderstandings happen all the time. Only when real culture is transmitted can we reduce misunderstandings. China is in a hurry, but we definitely need to be more patient.

What does the project do for the audience? Does it shock them? Does it humor them? Does it confuse them?

I think my work is black humor and metaphor. I believe that the sensory experience brought to the audience is indirect, pleasant, and thought-provoking. From critique, the audience is generally receptive to my message. I can also hear laughter and see smiles from the audience. But I also realize that for people of different cultural backgrounds, my work is different in terms of communication. All the Chinese present should be able to empathize with my feelings, and it is not difficult for the black students present to understand my thoughts. But our guest Professor Yunmi expressed her confusion. I think this is normal because the target group of this project is Chinese, and maybe black people. But her confusion also inspires me, because cultures are common. I believe that South Korean people are also facing the culture invasion of American culture, and South Korea is also trying to export their culture abroad. I believe the theme is universal. I think how to make people from different cultural backgrounds empathize with my works will be my main direction of improvement in the future\

Last but not least

Hope everyone enjoys this black humor fake documentary.

Special thanks to Professor Inmi for providing me with some conceptual guides

Special thanks to my friend Kevin Chen and Alan Chao for teaching me how to film and edit

I scan my left arm and limb: