God, please save me! ｜ Video Installation｜ 2018

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A prayer room is built in the exhibition hall. When the audience enters it, they find people from Thailand, the United States, Ecuador, India, Burkina Faso, the Philippines, Finland, and other countries asking in their native language: “Hey! SIRI, what is war?”

 

I aim to ask questions to impel everyone to find answers. When a viewer enters the space, sits in the priest’s chair, he instantly becomes a knowing everything Ethernet God in a smartphone who can answer to the people looking at the screen: What is war? Why do people fight? What are we fighting for? Who are we? Who can we become?

 

Of course, for the viewers, it might be tricky to identify what languages are spoken by people who come from countries such as Burkina Faso, a country located in West Africa that was once accepted as a French territory, or the Republic of Ecuador that was once occupied by Spanish colonists. No French or Spanish people were interviewed, but young people from other countries where French or Spanish are national languages were, and, even though they do not remember the languages of their origin countries, they regard these languages (French or Spanish) as their mother tongues. As of now, they have their own country, however, can the distinction between borders be considered the reproduction of a few human desires? Alternatively, is it a collective rationalization of the executioner’s legitimacy? Maybe we are only temporary visitors born on earth?     

 
Remarks:

You can enable SIRI on your iPhone, and you can ask questions or chat with it. Sometimes you might receive an unexpected answer. Of course, not everyone has an iPhone, and it is your choice whether you want to use SIRI. Maybe only lonely people use SIRI because it is like a close friend whom you can talk to.

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神啊，請拯救我吧！｜影像裝置｜2018

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建造了一個祈禱室在展場中，當人們進入後，會看見來自泰國、美國、厄瓜多、印度、布吉納法索、菲律賓、芬蘭等人，在螢幕中分別用母語說：「嘿！SIRI，甚麼是戰爭？」

 

希望藉此不斷的反覆提問，去驅動大家內心的深層回應。當觀眾進入空間後，坐在神父的位子上，瞬間變成「智慧手機」裡無所不知的乙太神，能去回答螢幕中的人，到底甚麼是戰爭，而我們為何而戰？為什麼而戰？我們是誰？我們能是誰？

當然觀眾進入後，對於母語的辨識度也許有限，但是來自這麼多的國家中，其中也包含了位處西非、曾經被納為法國屬地的布吉納法索人說著法文，以及曾經被西班牙占領的厄瓜多共和國的友人說的西班牙文。當採訪對象中沒有法國人和西班牙人，但是另外其他國家的年輕友人說著其他國的語言時，他們將之視為母語，甚至已經忘記最原始源出的語言時，如今他們擁有自己的國家，但疆界的區分到底是少數人類慾望的再現？還是集體合理化劊子手的正當性？也許我們皆只是在地球上誕生的一個短暫過客？

 

備註：

在蘋果iPHONE的手機中，可以設定開啟呼喚SIRI的功能，我們能詢問它，也能跟它聊天。有時它會給你意想不到的回答，當然並非每個人都有蘋果的手機，那是一種選擇，也是一種挑選，而是否開啟SIRI也是一種選擇，也許只有孤單的人才會開啟SIRI，因為多了一個貼身的夥伴，可以對話，即使文不對題。