SELECTED WORKS

[Available as PDF]

Spirit

2023

Single-channel 2k video, color, stereo sound

Dimensions variable

07’30”

Set to the rhythmic sound of breathing, Spirit captures a yoga practitioner unexpectedly accompanied by a swarm of robotic vacuums.

The machines’ systematic cleaning paths intersect with the practitioner’s poses, choreographing a dynamic interplay between chaos and control. This friction transforms the session into a quasi-religious ritual, merging the pursuit of physical wellness with technological intervention.

Crowded (2022)

The Switch (2021)

Balance (2021)

Chord (2021)

Tugging (2022)

Survival(I)

2021-2022

Archival pigment prints,
single-channel video

Dimensions variable

Survival (I) (2021–2022) is a series of performance documentation created amidst the recurring COVID-19 lockdowns and strict containment measures in Mainland China.

During this period of suspended social interaction, daily life was profoundly restructured. Through these recorded actions, the work investigates how individuals navigate confinement to maintain a sense of self. It explores the complex friction between external social constraints and the internal preservation of physical and mental well-being.

Charge (2021)

Insomnia (2021)

Piloting (2022)

Jingzhe (2022)

Survival(II)

2021-2022

Archival pigment prints,
single-channel video

Dimensions variable

This series examines the automobile as a distinct social architecture. Framed as "boxes," the vehicles serve not only as physical barriers against the outside world but as the last bastions of freedom of movement.

Survival (II) posits the car as a site of resistance: a mobile sanctuary where the private self can be preserved. Amidst the strictures of the pandemic, these confined spaces paradoxically offer the only true autonomy, transforming the driver’s seat into a crucial vessel of independence.

33.27Mbps

2022

Single-channel video, color, sound

1’21”

33.27Mbps explores the fragility of digital infrastructure. Recorded in Cryptovoxels, the video features an avatar sprinting at a speed that exceeds the network's processing limit of 33.27 Mbps.

As the data stream lags behind the user’s movement, the virtual architecture collapses into glitches and voids. The work visualizes the gap between user agency and technological constraint, ending as the protagonist sinks into a fragmented, loading abyss—an ocean surfacing from the errors of the system.

Canon in G

2020

Single-channel HD Video, color, sound

00’39”

In Canon in G, individuals from varying generations and backgrounds are invited to sing the Chinese national anthem a cappella. The work unfolds as an experiment in collective memory.

Although participants initially question their recollection of the lyrics, the melody triggers an ingrained response. Regardless of pauses or uncertainty, the body takes over, and every participant completes the anthem. The piece reveals how ideology and identity are inscribed not just in the mind, but as a form of muscle memory.

The Dog Whistle

2020

182-channel video installation

Dimensions variable

(Unexhibited project)

The term "dog whistle" refers to ultrasonic frequencies audible to dogs but typically undetectable by the human ear. The Dog Whistle appropriates this acoustic concept to critique the selective deafness of social control.

The project deconstructs a censored 2020 text regarding the coronavirus outbreak, distributing its fragmented lines among 182 masked volunteers. Intended for simultaneous playback, the work begins as a collective roar of fragmented truths, slowly fading into silence as the sentences end. This auditory decay mirrors the rapid obsolescence of information in a high-frequency information environment. The project remains a "romantic notion"—a resistance where language is deconstructed yet physically preserved within the bodies of the participants.

Paradoxically, the work’s continued prohibition from offline exhibition reinforces its very concept: a sound that exists, yet remains unheard.

The exhibition renderings presented here are AI-generated.

The Fourth Day

2019

Notarized documents, vinyl text

Dimensions variable

The Fourth Day is a performative intervention that tests the absurdity of bureaucratic systems against the backdrop of religious mythology.

Two days before Easter (Good Friday), I successfully obtained a legal "notarization of death" using fabricated documentation. On Easter Sunday—the biblical "third day" of resurrection—I attempted to notarize a "proof of life" to complete the cycle. However, the attempt failed simply because the notary office was closed for the holiday. Consequently, my legal resurrection was deferred to the fourth day (Easter Monday).

The installation presents the official documents alongside the conclusion: "I can die on Friday, but I cannot come back to life on Sunday. Because I am not Jesus, and the notary office is closed."

Suite No.2 For Body

2019

9-channel video installation, color, stereo sound

00’03” (Loop)

Dimensions variable

In Suite No.2 For Body, I orchestrate a rhythm of bone and cartilage.

Through a rigorous editing process, the act of joint-cracking is amplified into a rapid, chain-reaction composition. The resulting soundscape—sharp, rhythmic, and explosive—evokes the texture of pyrotechnics, yet remains intimately human. Installed as a corridor, the work envelops the viewer in a sonic passage where the "pop" of the joints dictates the rhythm of movement.

The installation asserts that the scale of sound is inherently "bodily," bridging the gap between internal physiological mechanics and external acoustic space.

Buddha Jumps Over the Wall

2019

4-channel video installation, color, sound

01’00”

Variable Dimensions

Appropriating the title of the luxurious dish "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall," this work interrogates the primal nature of appetite beneath cultural refinement.

I filmed myself eating voraciously in extreme close-up, utilizing contact microphones to record the sounds of mastication and swallowing as they reverberate through the skull (bone conduction). By externalizing these internal physiological sounds, the installation exposes the grotesque yet mesmerizing mechanics of the human body. It blurs the boundary between the "self" and the "meat," presenting consumption not as a social act, but as a rhythmic, biological compulsion.

Sound Ashes

2023

Whale recordings, original composition, acousitc foam, tape recorders, cassette tapes, double bass bow, rosin

0’30”(Loop duration)

Dimensions variable

Sound Ashes is a kinetic sound installation that physically erodes a conversation between species.

The 6-meter tape loop features a composite soundscape: underwater recordings of whale songs intertwined with a guitar composition performed by the artist. This melody is written specifically to match the lowered frequencies whales use to survive ocean noise. As the tape circulates against a rosin-coated double bass bow, the friction grinds both the whale's voice and the artist’s musical response into dust.

The accumulation of black debris on the acoustic foam below visualizes the silence left behind by this destruction.

(Commissioned by Nordic Contemporary Art Center)

Hello, Welcome

2017

30 motion-activated door chimes

Dimensions Variable

Hello, Welcome is a site-specific intervention situated amidst the ruins of Red Steel Dock No. 1 in Wuhan.

The work was created in the wake of a localized trauma: an engineering ship had sunk, displacing the workers who lived on board, clearing the way for the site’s transformation into a trendy riverside promenade. By embedding thirty cheap proximity sensors into the demolition site, I introduced a primitive, repetitive commercial soundscape.

The cheerful, electronic refrain of "Hello, welcome" acts as an ironic overlay, juxtaposing the site's present reality of displacement and decay with its impending commodification.

© Qi-Yao CHEN