Camera Obscura: Hu Jiayi Solo Exhibition

“Do not go gentle into that good night.”

— Dylan Thomas

“Absurdity” is both a life situation and an experience in the world. Today, our perception of “absurdity” in our daily lives is becoming stronger and stronger. The progress of modernization and technological advancement propel human beings to move “forward” and at the same time aggravate the “sense of absurdity” of the times, just as Albert Camus said, ” At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.” Man and machine are engaged in a complex fusion – we cry “beware of being trapped in the system” and cheer the arrival of the year of AI. Ultimately, the burnout, boredom and anxiety caused by mechanical routine triggers the sense of absurdity of life – “Rising, street-car, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, street-car, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm—this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ’why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. ”

Skating on smooth mirrors, boxing in an empty shopping mall, fighting with her own shadow in knight’s armor in an abandoned factory, sitting in a car and gazing aimlessly at an open air or underground parking lot, behind these images are questions about “why” and “Absurd”. In the past four years, people have become accustomed to sudden forced solitude or loss of physical contact with the outside world, and the continuous advancement of modernity has strengthened the creation of “absurdity” in terms of technology, system and human “embodiment”. Hu Jiayi places herself in a huge and depressing artificial scene, repeatedly doing something as if it were meaningless, and in the process, she gasps, sweats, loses her balance, until tiredness or something else finally makes her body stop. This exhibition presents some of Hu’s recent creations. In ” The Last War” series, Hu locks herself in a room with the red “security light” as the only source of light in the space. She dances to a war song with photographic paper attached to her body, and the shadows from the dance, the sweat stains, the hair and dander from her body, and the light leaked in the dark room form the image on the photo paper. The figure in the parking lot in Flat Grond does not want to return to the private space (home) or to enter the public space, which reflects the mental state of contemporary people. The modernist artist Dali is known for his unique moustache, and in “Dialogue with Salvador Dalí”, the Dalí without moustache and Hu Jiayi has an imaginary conversation in the exhibition hall. Hu Jiayi’s works always attract the audience to pay attention to the content of the works, but unlike Camus’ Sisyphus, the content of Hu Jiayi’s works will always make the audience become a cold-eyed passer-by at a certain moment, feeling boredom, dullness and then a great and inexplicable loneliness.

The loneliness brought about by this “absurdity” has always surrounded Hu Jiayi, which is also the reason why the exhibition is titled “Camera obscura”. Hu Jiayi is always illuminated by the taillights of the car in front of her when she takes a car to work before dawn every day, which reminds her of being in the “darkroom” of film development. On the one hand, the “darkroom” as a place for photo production generates “reality”, but on the other hand, technological advances have made this “reality” no longer believable, and it is precisely for this reason that JiaYi doubts the significance of “reality” and the nature of repetitive daily life.

In addition to the sense of absurdity brought about by the advancement of modernity, Hu Jiayi’s works also reflect a concern for technology. Today, we derive our limbs from a variety of technological products, especially from smartphone, which becomes an external part of the human body, and the screen in a way completes the process of democratization of vision, and at the same time increases the ability of human language. The combination of man and machine on the one hand transcends man’s own limitations, and on the other hand, these technologies also control us in turn, just like the limbs in the Structure – extended, magnified, and detailed in every possible way, but confined to the screen’s field of vision, and once they leave it, they return to their normal state of frailty. The eye in the Blind Zone is extended beyond its environment by the screen and camera, but this gaze is limited by the performance of the device itself, and this extension of human function is often monotonous compared to physical movement. This “technological” power is in a sense a different kind of absurdity.

——TangYixiang