ÆTHER (Poor Objects)
2021 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
18:28 minutes
Li Shuang
ÆTHER (Poor Objects) by Li Shuang builds on the artist’s consideration of the interplay between physical and digital spaces. Through a kaleidoscopic video collage, Li examines the complexities of personal subjectivity within an increasingly immersive and omnipresent online culture. Among disparate imagery that includes extra-terrestrial simulations, dizzying hordes of birds, animated figures trapped in dystopian virtual spaces, and real-life abandoned places, the video references the Chinese creation myth of Nuwa, a goddess who uses her own body to repair the sky. Interspersing footage of two female vlogger protagonists, Li’s video uses bodily sublimation to consider the slippages between virtual and physical realities. The video merges imagery of a solar eclipse, further illuminated by a ring light, a device commonly used by influencers, cam models, vloggers, and other social media personalities, now adopted by many office workers since the massive post-pandemic transition to remote work. The concept of leakage anchors both the visual and audio components of the video. Underscoring the collapse between work and leisure, leakage becomes an imperfect transmission between physical life and its translation into the virtual realm. Exercising both the tension and the potential of the subject-object dynamic, Li’s work is not merely a demonstration, but an intervention into this dialogue between avatars and viewers.
Raised in rural south-eastern China in the 1990s, Li Shuang grew up consuming popular media such as YouTube, MySpace, knock off Nintendo consoles, pirated video games, and dakou CDs. Since childhood, the artist has been interested in the inner workings of technology, and through her practice, has developed an understanding of its capacity as an agent of both entertainment and control within the context of China’s accelerated development. Encompassing performance, interactive websites, sculpture and moving image installations, Li Shuang’s interdisciplinary work considers mediums that compose the contemporary digital landscape, interactions between those mediums and its users, as well as amongst the mediums themselves. Central to Li’s practice is the friction between biopolitics and the body, digitized desire, and human intimacy. Her work examines how technology establishes globalized communication systems, and how they form part of a neoliberal apparatus that regulates the body, desire, and flows of information.
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