Project Description
This project intends to showcase the “onlooker mentality” in contemporary China and aims to intrigue viewers’ reflections on this phenomenon.
The “onlooker mentality” is a term that is translated from one of the most critical topics in the literature of Lu Xun (鲁迅), one of the most famous writers and thinkers in modern China. It is used to describe a phenomenon in the 1900s’ China when people are very numb and indifferent about what the people around them are suffering from and how badly the country has been invaded. Because of some recent incidents where people act as onlookers, I feel like this phenomenon that was issued nearly a century is still happening now. Thus, I would like to research this issue and try to display this nearly forgotten but concerning national mentality.
Therefore, after doing some research on this topic and reading Lu Xun’s original texts, I centered this project around the following 2 aspects: 1) how the “onlooker mentality” evolves, changes, and sustains over time; 2). what the monstrous relationship looks like between the onlookers and the people that are being looked at. And by focusing on these two aspects of the “onlooker mentality”, I hope to arouse viewers’ attention to reflecting on why it has been about a decade after the Lu Xun’s time, but people’s indifference and numbness never changed much; and simultaneously, reflecting on how the behavior of being an “onlooker” itself would do harm to the others.
Supporting information
The following are the references that inspired me and helped me narrow the project concept.
Literature 1: Is Contemporary Chinese Society Inhumane? What Mencius and Empirical Psychology Have to Say, Zhao, Wenqing.
This essay stated that like what Mencius says, people can be and might genuinely be altruistic, but “empathic concern for others is a fragile feeling that can be easily crushed by environmental factors (Zhao 359)”. Zhao also thinks that this kind of incident where people indifferently look at as passers-by constantly happen in contemporary China indicates that the cold, indifferent “onlooker mentality” is deeply rooted in Chinese society. And the continuation of this phenomenon “is a sign of failed moral education over past decades, and a result of current Chinese juridical monstrosities (Zhao 359)”.
This essay inspired me to look at the issue across time: the “onlookers mentality” remains stable and harmful to society after about a decade after Lu Xun’s time. By displaying the fact that the “onlookers mentality” is quite the same between a hundred years ago and now, I think the issuing of this problem would be more surprising and appealing.
Literature 2: Onlooker: Metaphor with Tragic Life–‘Onlooker’s’ Life Understands to Lu Xun， Wang, Xueqian.
This essay gives a comprehensive interpretation of what “onlookers” really mean in Lu Xun’s literature and how Lu Xun developed such an analysis of Chinese society. Its specific focus on the concept of the “onlookers mentality” by issuing it based on Lu Xun’s original texts and from different perspectives helped me clearly identify the concept of the “onlooker”: the people who lack faith and view others’ pain and sufferings as pleasure. This definition given by the text strengthened my understanding of the topic and back the whole research up with the exact definition by the original author.
Literature 3: Publicly Expose (示众), Lu, Xun.
This short story written by Lu Xun illustrated a scenario where a criminal is being exposed to the public in a street. In the short story, Lu Xun downplays all the details of the story, timeline, and logic of the whole scene, but only focuses on the onlookers’ acts of “looking”. In the story, everyone on the street is looking at something, be it the whole exposing the criminal to the public scenario, or just looking at others looking. The story also displayed an interesting yet provoking phenomenon that when the criminal looks back at the onlookers, the onlooker would look away. This could be summarized as “everyone is an onlooker, but no one dares to be looked at”.
I think this short story inspires me the most, especially in how to specifically display the “onlooker mentality” by simply displaying “the onlooker” and “the looked”. This tension between the two parties and the subtle emotion shown by shifting their places around is really worth exploring.
Artwork 1: Untitled, Maurizio Cattelan
Untitled by Maurizio Cattelan is a wax sculpture of the artist himself peaking into the museum from a hole in the museum floor. The hole has fuzzy edges, indicating that the statue “broke in” the museum like a thief; and together with the statue’s curious look, this artwork tries to deliver the artist’s interest in issuing the art system that the museums built.
This interesting artwork inspires me to think about placing the viewers as the people being looked at by “the onlookers”, which I think might work well and trigger the subtle emotion when people are “the looked” instead of the onlookers.
Artwork 2: Earth, Yinka Shonibare
In this artwork “Earth”, Yinika Shonibare combined objects from different cultural backgrounds and different time periods, to bring the objects a different context.
Though it’s not so closely related to my concept, Shonibare’s idea of combing seemingly different things and concepts through material culture is a great idea that I could adopt. Because I plan to showcase the “onlooker mentality” in different times of China within one piece, I could, like what Shonibare has done, use materials from the different time periods (such as clothes, hairstyles, and objects) to indicate the changes in time while the “onlooker mentality” remains unchanged.
Sketches & Technical Methods
Sketch
Idea
The design mainly intends to arouse viewers’ attention to reflecting on the unchanged “onlooker mentality” even after a decade after Lu Xun’s time; and simultaneously, reflecting on how the behavior of being an “onlooker” itself would do harm to the others.
To achieve the time concept, I decided to use human figures with iconic dressings of different time periods to indicate the mixture of different time periods in this project. To show the latter concept, I wanted to reverse the viewers’ experience of looking at works (the onlooker in this context) and make them the people that are being looked at by the human figures.
The project works as follows. When the project is in the normal state, the human figures would walk randomly and at different, but relatively low speeds in the semi-circle without bumping into each other. The postures of the human figures now are just walking. But when the sound in the space exceeds a certain volume or a viewer is standing inside the semi-circle for over 1 min, the human figures will quickly gather around where the sound is the loudest and where the viewer is. The postures of the human figures also changed to as if they are looking and observing something: standing leaning towards one side and crossing the hands, covering the mouth with one hand as if whispering to the people around it, or even holding out its phone as if recording a video… And simultaneously, sounds of audios that are subtracted from social media videos are layered onto each other and played in a loud volume. These videos are those taken by people who act as “onlookers” and used their phones to record certain incidents or others’ misery other than helping others.
Material
The most important material choice here would be the human figures. I plan to use plain wood sculptures in a medium tone of wood because I think wood has itself a sense of numbness inside, both in its raw nature and its metaphorical meaning. This numbness well-serves the “onlookers” idea.
Technical Methods:
- a sound sensor that detects the environment sound, and triggers the movements of the human figures when the volume is over a certain value
- a light sensor that detects where a viewer is standing in front of the project and how long have they stood there, and also triggers the movements of the human figures
- a motor that moves each human figure along the tracks
- an algorithm that manages to keep every human figures moving randomly and do not bump into each other
- If there is more than one person standing in front of the project for a long time or there are loud noises happening at the same time, the human figures will move to another stimulater accordingly. That is if one person was standing in front of the project for a long time and didn’t move, and then someone suddenly made a loud noise, 50% of the human figures would move as a group to where the sound was. Then after about 10 seconds, another 50% of the group left, and ultimately all went to where the noise was.