2011 - Ye Nan｜Zigzag

I don’t know when it started, but now we only see a global network of zigzagging lines. Although this is the product of extraordinary creativity and holds out promise of great change, it also harbors wishful thinking with an ulterior motive: to make the people, with their weak minds or ignorant enthusiasm, accept a world that progresses more quickly than their understanding. So much progress, like the many half-built buildings that dot our cities, comes to nothing, and so much more violently pits factions of society against others while those in power remain evasive about their collusion. Stories of progress cannot conceal their indifference toward the cost that progress exacts; a certain standard of living for the few does not outweigh proper precautions against that which jeopardizes the whole, just as the few good things a society produces do not prove that all is well in society's gloomier depths. It seems more patient planning and assessment of progress is the only way to reach our idealistic goals of today.
 
As a stubborn idealist, I create some writings for these gray roads.
 
In my installation Underground Blue, the red, yellow and green of traffic lights are both a clever device and still refer to traffic regulations. In the forest, however, they lose their effect. In the expanding system of limitless roads that move through the forest, traffic lights are both decorative and conspirators in the system. We still stop and wait for a green light in an empty intersection at night, but why? Behind the system of roads there lurks a prison of standardization. Every place is different, yet each still seems kind and cordial like a best friend or relative. I have built a beautiful and fragile blue forest under Lin & Lin Gallery. In this installation, blue becomes distant solicitude waiting for visitors’ guesses.
 
In The Target Can't be Hit, I indicate impossible targets. To me, anything about hitting a target and accuracy is a trap. There are always people who raise false questions where questions cannot be raised, and other people inside the system who are obliged to answer impossible questions. This is my eternal theme regarding systems. An aspect of my work is to play the role of a social hacker who takes every opportunity to harass an adversary, and to voice my opinions regarding those systems in collusion with one another.
 
Roads continue to zigzag across the land. We can imagine the small black roads in my work occupying every last corner of the earth. I just hope that the future we plan will not vanish like drifting clouds. In the end there are always some things that will crystallize and transmit their information into the distant future.