Feng Chen: Beats: Venice Project Room 2
Past exhibition
Feng Chen: Beats: Venice Project Room 2
Past exhibition
Capsule Venice is delighted to present to the public Chinese multi-media artist Feng Chen’s (b. 1986 Wuhan; lives and works in Hangzhou) special project “Beats”, featuring his cognominal site-specific installation.
Feng Chen takes over the greenhouse in the garden as Project Space 2 to re-create one of his iconic site-specific pieces: The Darker Side of Light, a light and sound installation paired with the video Untitled (2015). Through the transformation and control of the blinds, Feng Chen creates an experience focused on stimulating visual and aural senses through which the audible becomes visible. In this suspended and almost alien room, sound sculpts space creating a disorienting field of experience in which the material and immaterial interlace; common rules of perception vanish to summon a new sensorial reality. Once entered into the space, the viewer is invited to embrace a new spatial and temporal logic in order to become fully aware of its function as another possible element activating the space or being activated by it. Synchronised rhythm becomes central to the experience of the works: sound is imbued with a certain tangibility, as in the projected video images that pulsate rhythmically, as in a sort of heartbeat of the space itself. The sight of the garden house from afar - appearing as a mirage, an alien pulsing body with its almost hypnotic lights, their alternate movements - becomes another vivid aspect of the work.
On the occasion of the project, curator Manuela Lietti conducted the following interview with Feng Chen.
Manuela Lietti (hereafter referred to as M.L.): Can you explain the genesis of the work The Darker Side of Light? What is its relationship with your research and your body of work in general?
Feng Chen (hereafter referred to as F.C.): The Darker Side of Light series of works was my first attempt to experiment with light and with light-focused works. At the same time of the series The Darker Side of Light(blinds), I also made the project The Darker Side of Light - Color. In this latter one, upon entering the cubed space, viewers were immersed in an ambience of white light augmented by subtly pulsing LED lights. When one put on a wireless headset, all external sound was blocked. From the upper-west corner, a camera recorded the viewer and the surrounding environment, transferring real-time images onto monitors, each displaying a different angle of the space. The images reflected partial reality, as I intervened into the space through an intricate system of synchronization of images and light. The bright space then appeared in darkness on the screens, while music played through the headset, created a multi-sensory experience. This work was about controlling the camera to only capture the high-speed strobe light bulb extinguished. I felt that the two works had something in common so, I kept on using the same title for both. On this basis, The Darker Side of Light has a strong relationship with my other works in a way that it explores the notion of light, no matter whether natural or artificial.
Feng Chen (hereafter referred to as F.C.): The Darker Side of Light series of works was my first attempt to experiment with light and with light-focused works. At the same time of the series The Darker Side of Light(blinds), I also made the project The Darker Side of Light - Color. In this latter one, upon entering the cubed space, viewers were immersed in an ambience of white light augmented by subtly pulsing LED lights. When one put on a wireless headset, all external sound was blocked. From the upper-west corner, a camera recorded the viewer and the surrounding environment, transferring real-time images onto monitors, each displaying a different angle of the space. The images reflected partial reality, as I intervened into the space through an intricate system of synchronization of images and light. The bright space then appeared in darkness on the screens, while music played through the headset, created a multi-sensory experience. This work was about controlling the camera to only capture the high-speed strobe light bulb extinguished. I felt that the two works had something in common so, I kept on using the same title for both. On this basis, The Darker Side of Light has a strong relationship with my other works in a way that it explores the notion of light, no matter whether natural or artificial.
M.L.: The title itself - The Darker Side of Light - is quite evocative, grounded in an oxymoron. What role do light and dark play in this piece?
F.C.: The title is intended to emphasize how to look at the dark side of light; light is not only conceived as pure light itself; it contains and creates other things.
M.L: How does this piece keep evolving according to the different sites where it is staged? What main differences regarding the way in which the work is perceived do you find according to where the piece is installed?
F.C.: Many of my pieces are site-specific. In this case, the shutters need to be installed on a window; since the size of the window is different each time, there are differences in the final size of the work. This work controls the opening and closing of the shutters through sound, which can be used in different exhibition environments. Therefore, sound intervenes in shaping and moving the work.
M.L.: What is its relationship with Untitled, the other piece on view?
F.C.: The first exhibition I held at Capsule featured both these two works. At that time, I felt that the sound of Untitled synchronized the focus of the camera and the opening and closing of the blinds with the same sound control, which would cause some confusion when the audience saw this scene outside of the window.
M.L.: You just quoted the audience. What is the role of the audience? Do you take the role of the viewer and its experience of the work as a starting point for creating this kind of pieces?
F.C.: I don’t think about the audience’s perspective at the beginning. I just focus on my feelings. The visual feelings and experiences I feel are personal. But in the course of time, the experiences of the audience would accumulate. My work is much about a process of signal exchanging involving sculpture, sound, carbon fiber works. In every solo exhibition of mine, there is a hidden psychological experiment. The installation The Darker Side of Light in my first solo show at Capsule was a stress response experiment, for example. On that occasion, as in the installation in Venice, the unexpected opening of window blinds synchronized with the sound in the video startled the viewers. I try to find ways to trigger perception. I want to change the way information is perceived, and I want to observe the dynamic ways of interaction between humans and devices.
