I don't exist
"Being oneself" makes one panicky and anxious. The character that changes in this work expresses symptoms of illness. Analyzing them and the self-recognition of a mentally ill patient would be exhibited! How can one utter sophistry to justify one’s mental illnesses and confuse others?
"I'm Snow White and that's why…" The evolution of simple logic may seem ridiculous, but underneath that escapism is fully taking effect. Because I'm Snow White, I’m a happy princess. I can stop playing my role anytime. I can relax and I can fail. I'm Snow White and I play all the "me's" that could exist in reality and I can play the ideal me! Like the Baudrillardian simulation: The image has replaced the reality that it refers to, so people canare no longer distinguish reality from the simulated reality, where sings can replace reality. I often ask myself, is it possible that I don't exist?
Realism Theater
The festiveness of carnivals enables people to enter utopia temporarily; clowns and jesters, through different playful and crazy body movement and forms, try to break off the restraint of reality. Mikhail Bakhtin(1895-1975) called the carnivalesque world "the world upside-down." Festivities don't need a stage and there is little difference between players and the audience. Everyone actively participates and plays in the carnivalesque play. Carnival basically is a cultural means to overcome fear.
My stage is set up by my art and my life. My theatrical images come from realistic photography with digital compositing to create a simulated reality. Little did I know that when it was presented honestly, the so-called reality was just a process – the happening and the thoughts of all the events was as ridiculous as if seeing me and my images showing on screen at the same time. Throughout the process of creation, I play and complete the roles on the carnival stage made by myself.
My anxiety on socialization
Many people live in contradiction: yearning for freedom while being afraid of it. Some of them are even willing to be controlled by the institutions to gain sense of safety. The development of civilization, to certain degree, has been repressed in order to move farther. Erving Goffman (1922-1982) in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life also states: our everyday life is the presentation of ourselves. However, as civilization develops, the means and speed of communication also change, a potential crisis appears: the instant image that determines all! The conflicts among social identity, the personal identity, and the ego identity,appear at the end. The questions remain the same—who am I? What should I do? These are the social issues. One is still lost and seldom satisfied.
To me, reality, simulation, or illusion, none of them is the real. In the world of chaotic order, I attempt to realistically represent my thinking about the present moment.