text by Chen Chieh-Jen
In the Eastern hell, there is a "Nie-ching", or the mirror of the evil, with which none of the dead can avoid confronting. This mirror records the karmic images of every single behavior and every detail of thoughts, desires and forgotten memories of the dead.
Through this looking glass, the dead look back at the living world and see how they used to look like as living. What images does such a gaze really see? What does this kind of seeing consist in? How can thoughts be presented as images? What kind of imagery can accurately represent desires? How can lost memories be re-presented? How can "the concealed" be revealed through imagery? What is the exercise of power that can record human behavior as images? Are these images to be used as evidence in final judgment? Or, are they just a journey of looking at one's own desires?In any case, whatever the imagery, the site, or the time is, it all begins with the gaze.
It is because of the gaze that the images can be seen; it is because of the gaze, things can be "penetrated". It is also because of the gaze that we start to imagine and think. The images I would like to make are those images, thoughts, and desires I cannot but gaze at. They are the imagery that obsesses and appears in my mind. What I do in my work is to take down the images, because for me, they are those images that I cannot avoid and cannot help gaze at. |
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