Leave No Trace, 2015, pen and ink on plastic cone, 280x280x750mm
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In response to the changing atmosphere between Hong Kong and China, the city had been in a hiatus state for as long as 4 months during the occupy movement in 2014. By simple act of vandalism done in a ‘refined’ manner, an emergency cone is turned into an absurd object under speculation, even invisible if returned to the street at night. Leung continues to explore objects and apparatus in our culture that define or alter our behaviour in sight of uncertainty. A laser pointer here can also be used for other purposes, such as defining new boundaries within a space.
Connecting the Dots, 2015, laser pointers, variable dimensions
Under The Influence
Group exhibition, Floor 5 ½, Hong Kong, 6-22 Mar, 2015
Curator: Gabriel LEUNG
Artists: Saejin x Esther CHOI, Dylan DEROSE, Gabriel LEUNG, MAK Ying Tung, Trevor YEUNG
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The exhibition Under the Influence explores the idea of “play" in the age of postproduction. By looking into how images, objects or space can be manipulated to recreate new situations, the exhibition attempts to evolve as a site for production - situating the art, the material and the viewer all in one place.
Subsequently, images, objects and the world operates along a kind of circulation. Language is constructed. Image is fragmented. Object is consumed. As the title implies a consequential social responsibility, one ought to interrogate all things under the influence, from common banalities, consumable objects and spaces, to interpreted politics and economies.
"Reality itself is postproduced and scripted, affect rendered as after effect. Far from being opposites across an unbridgeable chasm, image and world are in many cases just versions of each other.” - Hito Steyerl
By focusing on shared experiences as material to experiment, artists have demonstrated various degrees of ignorance to the function of their chosen materials in order to reveal the underlying absurdity of things. Imagine a DJ eyes closed, mixing on frenzy with an overwhelming selection of vinyl records or digital music files at his/her fingertips. No matter if the floor is empty or full, the stage is set, and the mixing board is ready to unravel a new piece of music.
Through various processes in realizing the works, the exhibition hopes to activate a new relationship with all things familiar. Instead of criticizing and analyzing, through playful rearrangement / postproduction, one may arrive at a new point-of-view. Sometimes a joke is a way to understand a serious issue; the same way a detour becomes the best tour.
(Installation view)