Out of blue
Installation
2019
Story
Dust cannot be buried by dust,
Light cannot be shined by light;
Life cannot be experienced by life,
As death cannot be predicted by death;
The destiny of creatures out of blue is out of blue.
The living ‘Hala’
Henrietta Lacks, died of cervical cancer 67 years ago. Her physician, George, took out her living cancer cells and cultured them in the laboratory. Cells reproduce and grow, doubling in number every 24 hours. Henrietta's cells have since been studied and reproduced in laboratories around the world, providing valuable protocells for the development of polio vaccine and cloning technology.
‘Hala’ died, but her cells live forever in this world. I started to think about what is the substantial characteristics of the construction of the life in general. There are all hypothesis and theories out there when I did the literature review about life and death, where scholars meticulously researched in their own specific field to make statements about the nonsense that everyone seems to care about. Those statements raised are unified yet contradictive. However, there are just two divisions in the eye of the typhoon of the long-term discussion. That is, if the life and death is a Karma or not.
I did not expect to justify such theories, not for I am a nihilist or skeptic, but for the inherent nature of the dimension of the observed world of us are limited by our sensors. I would like to simulate the rather phenomenal facade of the theme, contextualising and analogising the materialism of the definition itself.
I suspended the blue ant home in the goldfish tank. At the same time, I opened one side of the workshop so that the ‘most successful’ ants could 'survive' if they could find a way outwards. But when they climbed out of their cage, they were greeted by a desolate world shrouded in the shadow of death. Ants are assumably two-dimensional creatures, but fish as three-dimensional creatures have already died in this setting. All ants can do is devour a larger being, namely the corpse of the fish, and maintain their own life and accept their 'blue' destiny. The boundary between life and death is broken but blurred at this moment, and ants constantly shuttle in the two parallel worlds. They may return to their original blue cage. But what is the meaning of their life and death? They cannot confirm authenticity in their own dimension.
The destiny of the ants out of blue is out of blue.