One Two Three Four
2008 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
Zhou Tao
Created for the Seventh Shanghai Biennale at the Shanghai Art Museum, Zhou Tao’s 1,2,3,4 records morning staff meetings in over forty shops and companies in the immediate vicinity of the People’s Square. Regardless of occupation, the employees count off and move in step to the rhythms of their companies’ corporate songs or chants, which are meant to build team spirit and corporate loyalty. Zhou’s practice alchemizes the ordinary surroundings into a theatre where his camera is not simply a recording apparatus but an extension of existence. The images it produces are not just detached spectacles: They are the agents that reveal the theatrical details suffused in mundane life.
Artist Zhou Tao has a diverse and varied practice, and notably, he denies the existence of any singular or real narrative or space. Depicting subtle and often humorous interactions with people, things, actions, and situations, Zhou is known for his films that invite us to experience the multiple trajectories of reality; what he calls the “folding scenario” or the “zone with folds.” For him, the use of video is not a deliberate choice of artistic language or medium, instead the operation of the camera is a way of being that blends itself with everyday life. In his work, Zhou connects seemingly disparate milieus, turning his attention to often ignored sites that exist on the threshold between the natural and the artificial. The visual narratives merge different spatial constructs such as landscapes, the metropolis, construction sites, parks, public squares, and wastelands.
