YANG WENBIN

YANG WENBIN

GREY MIRROR

CURATED BY LI JIE

In this work Euphoric Mirror, Yang Wenbin presents us with a reality that mixes truth with falsehood in a consumption society built on desire. Applying modern products related to “addiction”, “sex” and “subject conquer” like electronic cigarettes, sex toys as well as production and consumption of VR glasses, the artist carries out research and creation of relevant groups, focusing on how modern technology meets human needs and releases their desires. This leads to the uncovering of images hidden behind the social desires of modern production.

Behind the continuous production which can bring novel and cool visual experience, there is endless repetition of desire, repetitive work and ceaseless spam marketing. The additional capacity caused by productive chains is multiplied and rebounded to the subject of the desire - the consumers, which forms a perpetual and exhausting relationship of supply and demand. Such kind of relationship has become a paradox of China, the big country of consumption and production. Just as Song Dong said in his work, Doing Nothing Garden, exhibited in 2012, “Doing it costs you nothing, so why not do it? But if you do it, you’ll get nothing. Although you’ll do it in vain, you still have to do it…” The artist hopes to analyze the state of human beings with different desire of production and consumption through the videos of participants in this vain battle. Meanwhile, he hopes to constitute a mirror reflecting the irrational developing capacity of present China through the intertextuality of different clues.

The exhibition site brings participants reflections after their action and participation in more contextual experience space. Besides presenting massive photographic works related to our plan, the artist builds a transplanted “shop, factory and game house” by designing a series of consumption space (accumulation of goods and pictures), human computer interaction (user experience of equipment and live shooting) and virtual reality (network participation and VR games). At this moment, the photographs become both witnesses and translators, bringing us a “sober moment” in the euphoric dream of the long-term desire to consume.