Shuang Li

Déjà Vu

Video, colour, 13'41'', 2022

IN ORDER TO COMMIT TO REDUCING OUR ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION TOGETHER, THE VIDEO WORKS OF THE MIRE PROGRAMME ARE BROADCAST ONLY DURING PEAK HOURS, FROM 7AM TO 9.30AM, FROM 12PM TO 2.30PM AND FROM 5.30PM TO 8PM. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND HAVE A NICE TRIP.

This work derives from Shuang Li’s experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Composed of three videos alternating in seven parts, the piece begins with a performance conducted by the artist on the occasion of two of her openings in January 2022, in Hong Kong and Shanghai, which she was unable to attend. She hired twenty extras, dressed as her, to film the openings and convey her messages to the guests. These images, captured by the glasses worn by her lookalikes, alternate with images filmed by a camera attached to the neck of a white duck in Geneva, and a video shot by the artist, locked down in Europe, using her mobile phone.

The accompanying text serves as a narrative connecting the scenes, and presents a thoughtful reflection on vision, on the video medium itself, and on the visual experience provided by the use of the vocabulary of experimental film, documentary or hidden camera. The text investigates communication through the medium of writing and the screen, as well as the vicarious social interactions, inter-relational issues revealed by the epidemic. The combination of these different points of view generates a discourse on the pandemic that questions the place of the individual in a society that is both physically and semantically disconnected.

Production: Fonds cantonal d'art contemporain, Geneva

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Shuang Li was born in 1990 in the Wuyi Mountains region of southeast China. She received a master’s degree in Media Studies from New York University in 2014 and currently lives and works between Berlin and Geneva. Her practice focuses on globalised communication systems, on unbalanced information flows and on technology as a vehicle for controlling individuals. Understanding the interaction between the medium and its users, as well as between the mediums themselves, is crucial to her work. A multidisciplinary artist, her practice encompasses performance, interactive websites, sculpture and moving image installations, all of which investigate the components of the contemporary digital landscape.

Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Europe, the United States and Asia and in international events such as the Venice Biennale (2022).