About the Artist｜Li Yi-Fan
藉由雕塑、繪畫與影像投影，李亦凡的作品在空間中組成奇特的敘事體，它破碎、不完整、甚至不做功，躺在那裏，像是一些掙扎後的殘餘。藉由觀測這破敗的殘餘物，觀者窺見藝術家創作過程的迷亂時空：那些敘事慾望的想要與得不到。
李亦凡運用科技媒材的光雕投影技術，提供了一種後設的敘事概念，他的創作像是駐足於敘事的門檻上裹足不前的「準備工作」。在這「準備工作」中藝術家與媒材間的嬉戲、搏鬥、相互虐待，直到一方不支倒地，作品在腐敗中的屍體形成，然後，敘事才能默默開始。也因此在李亦凡的作品，看到的不只是敘事的內容，更多的是藝術家創作過程中，生活與媒材與故事之間勾勾迪所產生的曖昧維度，在那裡，時間凝滯，水星逆行，所有從口中迸出的話語都相互沾黏而無法成形。
Employing the forms of sculpture, painting and projection, Yi-Fan Li transformed his work into a fantastic narrative object lying fragmentary in the exhibition venue, a work bearing more than a passing resemblance to the detritus of bitter struggles. By observing these shattered remnants, the viewers may have a glimpse of the psychedelic space-time through which the artist has travelled; to wit, the emergence and disillusionment of desires.
Li formulated a meta-narrative concept by skillfully applying technological media such as projection mapping, making his work seemingly hesitate to move across the threshold of narratives and ergo mired in a state of constinuing preparation. Such “preparation” was rife with the frolic, wrestling and torture between the artist and the media he used. It was not until either party collapses that the work rose from the decaying corpse and then the narratives unfolded quietly. In this sense, what we see in Li’s work is not simply the narrative flow but also the ambiguous dimension acquired from the entanglements between his life stories and the media he adopted. In this dimension, time stops elapsing, Mercury is in retrograde motion, and all spoken words make no sense because they are blended with one another.
About the Work
2023, single-channel video, 37’05”
作為一名藝術家，李亦凡將自己的創作過程描述為藝術家與軟體之間展開的死亡決鬥，直到一件敘事作品從雙方衝突的腐敗遺骸靜靜地呈現出來。他竭力開發自己的錄像製作軟體工具；這是一套自行打造的個人化系統，但其展現的能力卻可與資源豐沛的數位特效產業匹敵。李亦凡借助電玩遊戲引擎細緻的3D動畫，來進行實時影像的即興創作，藉此思考遊戲中時間與空間的奇異凝滯，以及日漸複雜的技術工具導致欲望益趨細節化的現象。作品《難忘的形狀》為一場類似破敗科技產品的發表會（tech keynotes），描繪主角在為影像生成而設計的軟體工具所衍生出的社會與倫理問題中掙扎的樣態。影像如何改變了我們的溝通方式？表情符號如何能傳遞超越個人情感認知的情緒內涵？作品以私密細節描述人類的生命（及死亡），並大膽臆測視訊技術可能透過投射某種尚待到來的全體性，構築一套全新的生命政治學。
Li Yi-Fan is an artist who describes his production process as staging a death match between artist and software until a narrative work quietly unfolds from the decaying corpse of their confrontation. The artist laboriously develops his own software tools for video production: a personal, DIY system that nonetheless rivals capabilities in the resource-intensive digital special effects industry. Incorporating a video game engine that allows him to improvise in real time with detailed 3D animations, Li reflects on both the strange suspension of time and space within games, but also on the increasingly detailed desires that arise from increasingly complex technical tools. Presented as a parody of a tech keynote, What Is Your Favorite Primitive (2023) depicts a protagonist wrestling with social and ethical questions that arise from software tools designed for image production. How have images changed the way we communicate? How can emoji convey emotional content beyond one’s own perceptions of a feeling? Describing human life (and death) in intimate detail, the film speculates that video technology could construct a new politics of life by projecting a totality yet to come.
2021, single-channel video, 16’31”