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each 8mins / 24 mins 7 channel videos, 426” x 474”
For Lost in Everyday Life, I stay still in front of Lake Michigan for four weeks to learn to accept the ephemeral nature of myself and the lake. I acknowledge and observe the changing conditions of nature and the emptiness in it. My intention was to remove my attachment to passing moments. To have a contemplative approach, during my time by the lake, I recorded videos in a rigorous and systematic manner. Every day for four weeks, I took a five-second video every ten minutes for sixteen hours from a fixed spot. I would begin before sunrise (4:50 am) and stop after sunset (8:50 pm). While recording, the camera remained stationary. Even though light changed over the course of the day, the exposure settings were maintained the same. Throughout this repetitive process, I attempted to remove my emotional attachment and subjective interpretation.
Weather is in a constant state of flux, as are human emotions. I continued documenting videos despite the weather conditions and remained disciplined with the instructions I set for myself. My body was constantly impacted—burning in the sunlight, freezing in the wind, soaked in the rain. My body and mind relied on the conditions of the environment. On the other hand, as I was focusing on my set instructions, I let my attachments, my desires, my sensations, and my emotions pass by. I saw people, birds, the sun, clouds, wind, waves, rain, lighting, and rainbows, like my ego, appeared and disappeared across the repetition of days and nights.
The footage was mundane; nothing seems to happen. For the viewers, I tried not to filter my videos from my personal experience. Reducing my subjective interpretation and neutralizing my expression, my discipline became time. What people experienced throughout this installation was not through my experience of the lake, but through changes in time. According to different time and weather, sometimes the transitions in the same ten minutes gap between the five seconds videos were slow and subtle and sometimes they were abrupt and fast. In these ordinary scenes, the passing people and birds became the main characters. Within the videos, people came and passed. Some came and stayed. And they eventually left. Some reappeared. I hoped the viewers found beauty in these natural rhythms, continual arrivals and passings, appearance and disappearance.
Daily Rhythm, Powder Room Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, Mar 2018
https://www.powder-room.site/