MEMORY, MARKET, AND MIGRATORY TRANSITION
Memory, Market and Migratory Transition, 2015/2017/Ongoing, 16 small monitors, acrylic shelves, light box, digital archival prints mounted on laser cutting acrylic, wires with connectors, and microcontrollers. Adjust to site. Individual exhibition at Cuchifritos Gallery, New York, USA, 2015.
There are in total forty-nine video clips from seven locations. All the videos play in a manner based on the mechanical system of View-Master stereoscopes and reels. Adjust to site.
A light box with seven View-Master reels: my journey through seven locations in NYC (This is similar to the implied travel to the Seven Wonders of The World while playing with a View-Master.)
One of the seven View-Master reels, Journey to the Statue of Liberty: Starting as a tourist going to visit the Statue of Liberty and ending up at Ellis Island as an immigrant.
The moving images of the project displayed in the form of a three-dimensional View-Master reel built of small television monitors.
Total duration of all the video: 19.36 minutes.
Video: 2-minute excerpt, Journey to the Statue of Liberty.
Video: 2-minute excerpt, Journey to Central Park’s Conservatory Garden.
Based on the mechanical system of the View-Master, Memory, Market, and Migratory Transition displays as a “reel” of small television monitors representing moving images, and a light-box of digitally-printed 3D View-Master reels. The moving images are recorded from the vantage points of three different topics: landmark scenery in memory; transportation of commodities in the market; and the transition of migration. The implied journey between slides allows the audience to consider the dominance of mediated experience in contemporary culture, as demonstrated through journeys into imagined and physical spaces.
Memory, Market, and Migratory Transition was inspired by my childhood memories of playing with a View-Master. This device enabled me to see the world beyond my familiar environment. Although slides of the View-Master only minimally communicate the complexities of each place, and perpetuate Western notions of consumerism, its rotating mechanics and 3D color-printed photographs simulate the transition between still and moving images, and suspend the duality between imagined and real/physical places.