JINGXUAN FAN
A series of performance works
The Petrified Tree
AI sound installation , VR
My creation began with an unexpected personal experience: a chance encounter with a bird a few years ago made me a "medium." In the process of handling cases through the medium of language, I personally experienced a vortex that symbolizes power: the seekers view my narrative as "truth," while I cautiously realize the illusory nature of language itself—it not only shapes individual cognition but can also construct group identity, and has even been used in history for pre-war mobilization (such as religious poetry). This prompted me to reflect: is the narrative we rely on quietly eroding our more authentic and direct connection to the world?
In an era where technology accelerates narrative, large language models push this dilemma to the extreme, weaving a "hyperreality" composed of ghostly representations. Technology itself always possesses the duality of "pharmakon": it is both healing and poison, both externalizing memory and alienating perception. From text to algorithms, technological systems, while empowering us, may also lead us down new paths of confusion.
My installation work directly confronts this paradox of technology (as medicine) and recontextualizes a universal symbol in world religions—the tree and the snake. An AI-driven, repurposed storytelling machine becomes the core "narrator."
In the installation part: the audience's approach triggers an unsettling vibration emitted by an invisible "snake" in the ravine at the base of the tree (the main body of the installation). At this moment, the AI sound device, wrapped in human skin-textured leather and bird feathers (located on the tree), begins to randomly generate and narrate fragments of religious or mythological stories, attempting to soothe this "snake," which symbolizes primal unease or the unencoded. Meanwhile, black liquid within the installation slowly drips down, gradually filling the ravine. As the narrative becomes increasingly coherent (from fragmented to complete), the vibration of the "snake" tends to calm down.
In the VR section: the audience is invited to play the role of a "snake" that lacks a sense of security. In a completely dark virtual scene, the only goal of the "snake" is to find and approach a "tree" that continuously drips glowing liquid and tells a story. As the "snake" gets closer and the story unfolds, the darkness is gradually replaced by light. This is not a light of enlightenment, but rather a metaphor for a more sinister cognitive state in the digital age: the complete coverage of light (symbolizing information, data, representation) over darkness (symbolizing the unknown, silence, materiality). This does not bring truth, but symbolizes the ultimate victory of illusion over reality, and the thorough colonization of material reality by the system of representation.
The work ultimately poses a critical question about existence itself: when algorithms (AI) are injected into reality as the ultimate "pharmakon," does the promised infinite coherence and deep comfort come at the cost of erasing all roughness, randomness, and the incommensurable? Are we irrevocably welded into a self-referential, unfalsifiable code dream? Are we embracing an increasingly refined and perfect, yet ultimately hollow "hyperreality" at the expense of the richness and complexity of existence itself—one where even the "snake's" instinctive unease is smoothed over by algorithms, yet we can no longer touch the solid sensation of the earth?
My creation began with an unexpected personal experience: a chance encounter with a bird a few years ago made me a "medium." In the process of handling cases through the medium of language, I personally experienced a vortex that symbolizes power: the seekers view my narrative as "truth," while I cautiously realize the illusory nature of language itself—it not only shapes individual cognition but can also construct group identity, and has even been used in history for pre-war mobilization (such as religious poetry). This prompted me to reflect: is the narrative we rely on quietly eroding our more authentic and direct connection to the world?
In an era where technology accelerates narrative, large language models push this dilemma to the extreme, weaving a "hyperreality" composed of ghostly representations. Technology itself always possesses the duality of "pharmakon": it is both healing and poison, both externalizing memory and alienating perception. From text to algorithms, technological systems, while empowering us, may also lead us down new paths of confusion.
My installation work directly confronts this paradox of technology (as medicine) and recontextualizes a universal symbol in world religions—the tree and the snake. An AI-driven, repurposed storytelling machine becomes the core "narrator."
In the installation part: the audience's approach triggers an unsettling vibration emitted by an invisible "snake" in the ravine at the base of the tree (the main body of the installation). At this moment, the AI sound device, wrapped in human skin-textured leather and bird feathers (located on the tree), begins to randomly generate and narrate fragments of religious or mythological stories, attempting to soothe this "snake," which symbolizes primal unease or the unencoded. Meanwhile, black liquid within the installation slowly drips down, gradually filling the ravine. As the narrative becomes increasingly coherent (from fragmented to complete), the vibration of the "snake" tends to calm down.
In the VR section: the audience is invited to play the role of a "snake" that lacks a sense of security. In a completely dark virtual scene, the only goal of the "snake" is to find and approach a "tree" that continuously drips glowing liquid and tells a story. As the "snake" gets closer and the story unfolds, the darkness is gradually replaced by light. This is not a light of enlightenment, but rather a metaphor for a more sinister cognitive state in the digital age: the complete coverage of light (symbolizing information, data, representation) over darkness (symbolizing the unknown, silence, materiality). This does not bring truth, but symbolizes the ultimate victory of illusion over reality, and the thorough colonization of material reality by the system of representation.
The work ultimately poses a critical question about existence itself: when algorithms (AI) are injected into reality as the ultimate "pharmakon," does the promised infinite coherence and deep comfort come at the cost of erasing all roughness, randomness, and the incommensurable? Are we irrevocably welded into a self-referential, unfalsifiable code dream? Are we embracing an increasingly refined and perfect, yet ultimately hollow "hyperreality" at the expense of the richness and complexity of existence itself—one where even the "snake's" instinctive unease is smoothed over by algorithms, yet we can no longer touch the solid sensation of the earth?