Come and Complete the Final Ceremony
Come and Complete the Final Ceremony
In 2019, in the exhibition "Relic" at Shanghai Drama Art Center, Loopwave tried to use the story text as a clue for the structure and creation of the works. It is also part of the overall work. The core of the story is that: after the alchemists in the palace completed the alchemy, the whole palace disappeared. The light box installation, video, and sound interactive installation in the exhibition are all part of a theme.
This method of creation has been extended to 2021. In the upcoming exhibition “Festival” at A8 POP, the story line shifts to what happens in a nearby village after the people in the palace disappear. The graphic is a combination of 261 graphics made by scanning the remains of animals and plants collected by Loopwave from 2017. The plane graphic in the image "Palace" used in 2017 was converted into an acrylic installation.
In the process of continuous combination and deconstruction of 261 kinds of graphics, the story line in the work gradually becomes clear...
The article is edited from the
interpretive text of the artist Zhou Fan
—"Now the Story Begins..."
The Ritual of Hanging
The work is presented in three different chapters, and the narrative expression is also carried out with the obvious structural logic in the installation work. This expression fits well with a paragraph that describes the person in the context of the situation. In other words, the story line of the character is presented in the form of art works. (The text of the story narrates that the elders came to the valley from the tent where they lived, and there are a lot of descriptions of the environment, temperature, sound and other information).
Describing a person from such a perspective brings about an interesting effect: all environments are constantly enriched in the superposition of words, except for the absence of any description of characters’ characteristics. It's like seeing an object floating in the air in a natural environment. In this way, text becomes tool for creation and at the same time, achieves its best condition as a “material”.
The project was divided into two parts -- 'Deities' and' Zodiac ', which are extension of a creation line: 'Trace of Witchcraft'. The aesthetic system of ritual is very perfect. The placement, lighting, smells, and sounds of the space are used to create a special environment in which everything becomes unfamiliar, which allows us to blur our understanding of reality and begin listening, meditating, and confessing in the depths of consciousness.
Recreate a scene of consciousness
“Recreate a scene of consciousness” is a creative direction that both solo artist and Loopwave will choose to adopt. In this exhibition "Festival", Loopwave chose to make lamps of different shapes as the basic material for the installation. The light and transparent materials create a very light and clean visual effect. This effect also matches well with the way the text is described.
In the initial stage of the installation's production plan, the environmental conditions of the work have been cleared. That is to say, all the restrictions of the environmental conditions were removed. They do not repeat themselves in living rooms or on the roofs of buildings or in the natural environment. At the same time, I also want the work to bring this kind of memory to all people, just like the traces after the completion of the ceremony.
—"Decoding the Four Spaces..."
Space 1：Elder
The area where Elder lived was in the center of the tribe, and the totem poles outside their tents naturally separated the road from the market. Elder waked up before sunrise to start the day: burning incense - praying - brewing tea - lighting tobacco - going for a walk in the forest - waiting for the sunrise.
However, today, there was no movement in the tent until the sun hits the ground vertically. The burning ground was bright and dry at noon, and occasionally a breeze swept across the ground and raised fine dust. Cries of insects in the grass and cicadas formed a layer of translucent sound waves, and the three tents under the shade of the trees looked like silent beasts.
Elder went elsewhere and left without warning, leaving everyone at a loss. Anxiety and suspicion quickly spread among the people, and stories made up of nothing quickly spread throughout the street, and people began to continue their previous lives in the end of the story. When night came, the insects stopped chirping and Elder's tent glowed with a dim light.
Space 2：Chamber
The room is located next to the tent, which is where I must pass every day when I go out. I do not know when the sound always becomes intermittent in this space. I tried to analyze the break points of these sounds, but finally I got nothing, there was no concern, no fixed length, and different sounds sounded more like strange languages under such blocking effect, with rich layers but unclear meaning.
It's like hearing a conversation on the phone because of a wire crossing. The intermittent sound has been around the room so far. Gradually I forgot about it, but the separated sound has become a part of the room.
Space 3：Ambulatory
The hexagonal screen in the cloister was an imported good, but Elder did not say much about the origin of the screen. In the days leading up to the festival, Elder spend a lot of time here, praying for rain or divining, we never know.
Space 4：Valley
The mountain is a huge living thing, and each breath takes too long. Time is more of a parallel companion to it. It was late at night when I came to this valley, and in the thick night mist, there was the smell of plants mixed with water, and the deities gave off a pale white light. This time, Elder saw the transparent valley.
—"The Festival Invites You..."
After the alchemists in the palace had completed their alchemy,
the whole palace disappeared.
Through the wondrous acrylic jungle,
The rituals associated with the festival were repeated one by one,
Parades, bonfires, divination and sacrifices...
With the first beat of the drum,
Four chapters slowly unfolded:
From Elder to Chamber, Ambulatory to Valley
Every switch is a complete collective carnival.
But at the peak of the festival atmosphere,
there are only static prayers and nostalgia.
By the side of LUXELAKES, in the Rainbow,
A8 POP is waiting for you
to complete the final ceremony.
Production: Loopwave, puzaosi, A8 Design Center
Artistic Director: Zhou Fan, Liang Rui
Curator: Zeng Ziluo
Artist: Zhou Fan, Duan Luo
Sound Device/Parametric Model Design: Duan Luo
Work Production Coordinator: Duan Luo
Curatorial Assistant: He Zi, Liu Keqin
Visual Design: Zhou Fan, Yu Jiayue
Execution: Daxiong, Dasiyi
Exhibition Time: March 20, 2021 -- April 14,2021
Venue: A8 POP LUXELAKES Eco-City
Artist Introduction
Zhou Fan
Independent Artist. Living and working in Chengdu.
Since 2012 when he decided to make landscape as his focus, Zhou Fan has transformed his painting into a distinctive, compelling form of personal expression. In Zhou Fan's pictorial vocabulary, landscape is a metaphysical concept; a visual expression of space, or place, in which the contradictions between nature as an idea of a healthy realm and the terror that its raw state insoires, are given free rein. "Phobia" reflects Zhou Fan's fears about everything from global warming to contagious disease, from dissipation of privacy to the total destruction of all we know under the threat of a nuclear explosion. But for all the dark Nietzschean philosophy that underscores his aesthetic concept, Zhou Fan's paintings inject a delightful psychedelic brilliance to our perception of contemporary reality; landscapes in which you can wander and linger, and imagine a better world.
Recent Exhibitions：
Solo Exhibitions
2019 Pollen: Zhou Fan Solo Exhibition, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai
2018 Phobia: Zhou Fan Solo Exhibition, OCAT, Xi’an
Group Exhibitions
2020 A Spirit Was Seen from the window - Work Collection Cases of Chinese Young Artist Since 1999 , Hi art space, Shanghai
2019 Out of Ink: Interpretations from Chinese Contemporary Art, Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
