The Magic of Staying: A Summoning Spell of Wealth (2024)
Video installation. Mixed media. Variable dimensions.
Shanshui has been stripped of its historical elegance and reduced to commonplace imagery in contemporary Chinese internet culture. However, the combination of shanshui with tuwei (literally 'taste of the soil', earthiness or vulgarity), nostalgia and low resolution has long been evident on live streaming platforms. It's an aesthetic often found in tiktok special effects aimed at the middle-aged and elderly. Many shanshui elements have been processed using early retouching technology, and these over-retouched images are highly saturated and surreal, creating a kitsch effect that is recognisable to many in China, and which is both wacky and entertaining. This type of visual effect is often mocked and turned into a meme. Drawing on colour theory, my work has examined this genre of landscape painting - the style of the rural photographic studios of the 1990s, the retouching techniques of the early 2000s, and how they have appropriated elements of shanshui to create outdated images considered to be in poor taste. I presented a new account of how shanshui was reduced from elegance to vulgarity, starting with counterfeit products and shanzhai (a Chinese neologism meaning knockoff) culture.
Installation view of The Magic of Staying: A Summoning Spell of Wealth (2024), 294.5*175.5*221 cm.
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