Yixuan Lyu is a moving image artist from China. She works with generated images, found footage, and images from everyday life. Driven by the traumatizing experiences of understandings and misunderstandings, her works question the fundamental functioning of language, and try to communicate in an inefficient way to avoid the illusion of making sense. Expanding on her research on philosophical approaches to language and mathematical understanding of logic, she finds inspiration in physical phenomenon, and builds her works on her lichen-like thoughts through these seemingly unrelated topics. July 2022
As An Ephemeral Metaphor (2022)
Two-channel video installation, 19 mins and 5 mins 23 sec looped.
If language is part of an organ in our body, which one would it be? This is a story about fluid, a story about breathing and suffocating. A story of an artist applying for a permanent residency to live underwater.
“In any case, it appears clear to me that words for a writer are anything but a necessary evil. Words are not merely a means of saying something but the very material of a work of art. Literature is made out of words and comes into being by employing the laws of the word” Viktor Shklovsky
Crossing through abstraction and materiality, two-channel video installation “As an ephemeral metaphor” consists of a narrative video essay about the lifetime of a bubble ring, a digital candle, and a ring light. With the belief that the reception of language is metaphorical rather than representative, and that language cannot be thoroughly interpreted not only because of its arbitrary nature as a symbolic system, but also the unreliability of the cognitive process of understanding. The video essay tries to face the vacuum of meaning from the inside of the system, from ambiguous obscured mumbling to the most effortless conversations in daily life. Then tried to find a way to communicate with such realization, yet only produces wrong answers. The video ends with the original footage of Yuri Lipski’s diving accident recorded on tape.
Two-channel video installation, 19 mins and 5 mins 23 sec looped.
If language is part of an organ in our body, which one would it be? This is a story about fluid, a story about breathing and suffocating. A story of an artist applying for a permanent residency to live underwater.
“In any case, it appears clear to me that words for a writer are anything but a necessary evil. Words are not merely a means of saying something but the very material of a work of art. Literature is made out of words and comes into being by employing the laws of the word” Viktor Shklovsky
Crossing through abstraction and materiality, two-channel video installation “As an ephemeral metaphor” consists of a narrative video essay about the lifetime of a bubble ring, a digital candle, and a ring light. With the belief that the reception of language is metaphorical rather than representative, and that language cannot be thoroughly interpreted not only because of its arbitrary nature as a symbolic system, but also the unreliability of the cognitive process of understanding. The video essay tries to face the vacuum of meaning from the inside of the system, from ambiguous obscured mumbling to the most effortless conversations in daily life. Then tried to find a way to communicate with such realization, yet only produces wrong answers. The video ends with the original footage of Yuri Lipski’s diving accident recorded on tape.
Un-Formalized Language (2022)
Two-channel video installation, duration: 8 minute and 4 minute looped.
Language, with its ability to renunciate violence, can also hold the power that leads to the most violent moments in history. Is it the neutral tools used in an evil way, or is there something violent embedded in the nature of language, the signifier-signified structure, or the order-word statement? In Formalized Language, English is broken down to the elementary level, sentences into words, and words into characters. With generative images, it attempts to approach the void of meaning beneath the surface of language.
Two-channel video installation, duration: 8 minute and 4 minute looped.
Language, with its ability to renunciate violence, can also hold the power that leads to the most violent moments in history. Is it the neutral tools used in an evil way, or is there something violent embedded in the nature of language, the signifier-signified structure, or the order-word statement? In Formalized Language, English is broken down to the elementary level, sentences into words, and words into characters. With generative images, it attempts to approach the void of meaning beneath the surface of language.
Group Exhibition: Call It What You Will, The Moment Has Its Own Dimensions, A.P.T Gallery 17-27 March 2022
Panel Discussion: 24-March 2022, 5pm
Postgraduate Degree Shows: Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross SE14, 21-26 July 2022
Panel Discussion: 24-March 2022, 5pm
Postgraduate Degree Shows: Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross SE14, 21-26 July 2022