Ping Pong, Screaming

Scream

16 seconds 2020

Laser-cut woodblock printing on different types of Xuan papers,

Hi-resolution scans, Digital inkjet printing on Museum Etching paper.

Ping-pong

2021

7 seconds

Digital inkjet printing on Chinese letter paper

If only the part of the net centered on the ping pong ball is intercepted while watching the sport, the picture of the ping pong movement becomes an object constantly moving repeatedly between two edges. Upon further observation, this object can be an immigrant, an international student, an artist, a policy, or a news report. The two edges can also be two countries, two artistic mediums, or two orientations of public opinion.

2020 was an unusual year. As an international student trapped between China and the United States during the epidemic, I witnessed the game between two major countries and experienced firsthand the powerlessness of being an individual caught in the middle of this game. Soon after the outbreak began, I saw conspiracy theories about the U.S. military creating the new Coronavirus circulating on the Chinese Internet, and almost simultaneously, conspiracy theories about Chinese laboratories creating the new Coronavirus began circulating on the English Internet, with both sides being so well-founded and justified that it was hard to tell if they were true or not. Immediately following the conspiracy theory about the origin of the virus was the rapid deterioration of relations between China and the U.S. Along with the sanctions imposed by both sides on the other side, there were more difficulties in studying abroad and a series of repeated policy changes. I can’t afford the current inflated and expensive airfare, which is one of the reasons I can’t return to China during that time. Also, on the U.S. side, as an international student, I was not able to receive any government assistance during the epidemic. The increase in food prices increased the cost of living, and living in a small town without my own car made it more challenging to get food. Policies on how international students could continue their education were also changing, from the beginning of supporting online distance classes to needing to return to the U.S. to take online courses to switch back to being able to take distance, online courses. Many things in life began a seemingly endless iteration of change. In addition to having to deal with the material hardships, I also had to deal with the negative impact on public opinion. Although I am a Chinese citizen, as some Chinese people who have been infected with the virus hide the fact that they are infected and return to China from the United States, the public opinion on the Chinese Internet becomes more and more unfriendly to Chinese people and international students living and working abroad. In the eyes of some people, I have even become an “American” and am being treated with great hostility. But on the American side, I was completely Chinese, and I had to worry about possible racial hatred and retaliation due to the epidemic. So my identity was constantly changing between “American” in the eyes of the Chinese and Chinese in the eyes of the Americans. I found this frustrating and absurd.

In the spring of 2020, during the epidemic, I also began testing my first Cyanotype video, and as I used digital equipment such as printers and exposure machines to transform the Cyanotype process from a static image to a moving image, I also felt the uniqueness and wonder of the manual, digital, reproducible and irreproducible changes over and over again.

When faced with the above scenarios, I think screaming is probably the most appropriate way to express it. It is a reaction to something that is difficult to accept but can’t be helped. It can be a scream of repeated changes in policy, a scream of conflicting opinions, a scream of confusion about one’s identity, or a scream of wonder at the repeated transformations of the art medium. The scream is often followed by calm, and I hope that the disruptions caused by the epidemic will return to normal in the future and that my exploration of still and moving video will enter a new phase.