Untitled Funerals
2022. 9
Miniature Installation, Digital photographs, interactive website
Installation dimension variable: 10*30*12mm/piece
This work is an attempt to discuss the value of photographs under contemporary mass media context. It is an installation that presents miniature gravestones with QR code on each ofthem. In this way I tried to create a cemetery for those photographs that have been forgotten and ignored in my album that filled with tens of thousands of photos. In contemporarysociety of camera equipment, photographs are readily available to almost everyone. Meanwhile, the binding relationship between mass media and imageries has become a major drivefor people to produce massive photos every day, and it is a universal and personal experience.
A funeral ceremony was created for those forgottenpictures on my iCloud by screenshooting them and digitally manipulated a number of portraits wearing black clothes onto thosescreenshots, which may visually remind people of Magritte butwith a present-day context. Tiny portraits floating on the picturescreates a ghost like sense, and they have different transparenciesto represent the slow death of those photos.
The contents in these photos are representatives of those repetitive photos I take the most in daily lives, such as meals, selfies,sunsets, trips, exhibitions etc. Lastly, inspired by the online ceremony that I attended during Covid lockdown, I created a digitalobituary for each photo and printed it on the miniature grave-stone as a QR code, allowing audience to interact with. Thisinstallation provoke audience to rethink the act of taking photos.
Funerals for photographs: Interactive online ceremony invitations
Link to screen recordings: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9tQSLCkgFxY9WWxpOagicFPAr0C6D-tN