The Establishment of Art Through Watching

This project kicked off the "Watching Series."

The author commenced the "Watching Series" in 2009 which applied a new technology of face identification to explore philosophical issues in life. It raised questions such as:

If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, does its fall create any sound at all?

Is a work of art still art when no one is watching?

The face identification device can detect whether this artwork is viewed or not. If no one is looking at it, the screen will fade out. And when the device detects that someone is looking at it, the interactive mechanism is activated. Thus, the meaning of the artwork is generated through the behaviors and perception of the audience.

 

In the Name of "My" Family

"Gaze" was inspired by the faces captured in an old black-and-white photo. Each face in it, man or woman, old or young, resembles one another because of the shared kinship. It seems a ghost of this family is still haunting the picture through each face of the family member.

The interactive mechanism of this project is: When an audience is sitting in front of the screen, his/her face will be captured by the computer and transformed into the faces of the family in the photo, as if they were looking at each other. The audience is like a spectator beside the photographer of this antique family portrait, accidentally intruding into the family and gazing at his/her own face multiplied in the facial complexions of the family members in the photo.

When this project was exhibited in Beijing, it greatly impressed a little girl. Every half hour she'd drag her grandpa to check out how this family looked like now.