Tremble
2009 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
6:00 minutes
Jiang Zhi
In the video installation Tremble, Jiang projected the life-size images of seven naked men and women onto seven individual screens. Each person displays a different facial expression and body position such as reading a book, arms open for a hug, holding a knife, raising a fist to take an oath. Each gesture reflects some essential social aspect of everyday life: hugging is about caring, taking oath has to do with politics, reading relates to acquiring knowledge, and raising a knife indicates violence. As a result of a hidden vibration machine, the images’ projection screens oscillate vigorously and the contradiction between the shaking screens and the static human figures creates an absurd effect. Through this imposed trembling, Jiang suggests the invisible power that controls modern human behavior. These seemly “out-of-control” actions are often ironically conceived as the most adaptable and mutually-agreed upon tenets of social activity.
Jiang Zhi represents a generation of artists whose practice developed against the backdrop of experimental art in China in the 1990s, during which a series of social and cultural transformation occurred in the country. His work actively deals with issues such as body, gender, identity, consumerism, conflict, fear, power, and temporality, and often involves recent social events. Jiang attended the China Academy of Art and has long been engaged with writing and video art. From 1995 to 2005, Jiang was also an active journalist, which had him on the frontlines of his country’s the social transformation, and all of his experiences have deeply influenced the language and context of his practice. Constantly positioning himself at the intersection between brutal reality and poetic imagination, Jiang’s works presents a complex trajectory of the artist’s everyday life and society at large.
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