21 Ke (21 Grams)
2010 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
Sun Xun
Sun’s animated film 21 Ke (21 Grams) is based on the 1907 research by the American physician Dr. Duncan MacDougall who claimed the measured weight of the human soul to be twenty-one grams. Sun used this episode—which was not fully recognized by the scientific community—as a point of departure for his depiction of a dystopian world in which the narration of history and notion of time are interrupted. Because each frame was drawn by hand with crayon, it took Sun and his animation studio team a few years to complete this thirty-minute film of a surreal journey through mysterious cities, plagues of mosquitoes, broken statues, cawing ravens, waving flags, and flooded graveyards. Here, an ever-present man in a top hat makes obscure, cryptic references in scenarios that include the national anthem, factories belching soot into the threatening sky, and soaring planes dropping leaflets to earth. Rather than encouraging specific interpretations, 21 Ke is a visual commentary that asks essential questions of human existence: Who we are? What have we done? Where are we heading?
Sun Xun creates videos and animation films from his meticulous, highly detailed, and often monochromatic, hand drawings executed in ink, oil, and crayon. Drawing on the ideas of thinkers like Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer, Sun investigates revolution, existence, mythologies of society, the notion of time, and the construction and narration of history. Often in a style of magical realism, Sun’s works are full of metaphors and indirect visual associations that beg to be deciphered.
Colors:
Other related works, blended automatically
© » KADIST
Chen Shaoxiong
2007After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...
© » KADIST
Kwan Sheung Chi
2012Kwan Sheung Chi’s work One Million is a video work depicting the counting of bills...
© » KADIST
Qing Zhang
2006603 Football Field presents a soccer game played inside a small student apartment in Shanghai...
© » KADIST
Chen Shaoxiong
2006After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...
© » KADIST
Petra Cortright
2012In the flash animation SpringValle_ber_girls , Petra Cortright collages together surreal scenes out of unnaturally idyllic desktop screensavers with equally unreal computer-generated women that pop in and out of the landscape...
© » KADIST
Lin Yilin
Golden Bridge is part of “Golden Journey”, a series of site-specific performances and installations created during Lin’s residency at Kadist San Francisco...
© » KADIST
Du Zhenjun
2010The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...
© » KADIST
Du Zhenjun
2010The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...
© » KADIST
Jianwei Wang
2007In Dilemma: Three Way Fork in the Road , Wang references Peking opera in a re-interpretation of traditional text...
© » KADIST
Jeffry Mitchell
2012Though the title might suggest an Adonis, Jeffry Mitchell’s The Swimmer (2012) is a squat, jolly man with a protuberant belly...
© » KADIST
Lu Chunsheng
2004A mesmerizing experience of a vaguely familiar yet remote world, History of Chemistry I follows a group of men as they wander from somewhere beyond the edge of the sea through a vast landscape to an abandoned steel factory...