my working parents

Video, 17'44", 2018

双薪父母

视频,17'44",2018

9 x 235 x 30 = 63,450 is mathematical equation that represents the working life of a single person. The artist, inspired by her mother’s transition into retirement and her own phase of transition, uses the camera to observe the professional life of her parents in a big city in China. She observes her parents’ daily routines and activities, which she did not notice as a child. "my working parents" is a documentary work that gives homage to the artist’s parents.

Zhé Wang uses a split-screen to place the recorded sequences parallel to each other, to follow each other again, to multiply and to set them into a rhythm. The topic is ultimately about the flow of time just as the artist masters her time-based medium.

Through her ingenious imagery and composition superimposed with a precisely applied soundtrack, she manages to translate a biographical approach into a general one. In this way, "my working parents" gains a fascinating pull, with its rapid succession of architecturally appealing structures and grids that intertwine personal and public spaces. In a remarkably self-contained form, Zhé Wang raises the deep human issues and the relationship between individual and community, need and desire, coercion and freedom. The work stimulates reflection on our contemporary culture and its divergent views of work, family and life, with the ultimate and doubtful question of what remains after.

9 x 235 x 30 = 63,450,这样一个等式, 是视频作品“双薪父母”的开头片段。 这五位数字代表一个人的一辈子的工作时长(估算)。 正是这位艺术家的母亲,在她退休的过渡时期为王哲带来了灵感。艺术家本人当时也正在经历一个人生的过渡期,她用相机纪录下父母双方在不同单位的职业生活,通过观察她从小到大可能并没有注意到的/无法参与的父母的日常工作,产出了这个纪录片作品,也包含了艺术家对自己父母的敬意。

王哲巧妙地使用了分屏的形式,同时将视听轨道平行剪辑,然后再叠加分流,使其倍增并节奏化。 艺术家对基于时间媒介的巧妙运用,使得作品的主题逐渐显现:在时间中的生命。通过有趣的图像和构图, 以及对音轨的精确应用,她设法将纪录语言转换为一种抽象的符号。通过这种方式,作品引人入胜, 即具有格式化的,建筑结构式的美学表现力,使得个人和公共空间交织在一起。

王哲以一种非常独特的形式,提出了一系列普世的问题,即个体与集体之间的问题,需求与欲望之间的问题,强制与自由之间的问题,并且清晰地表达出了这些矛盾。这个作品激发了不同文化中的人们对当代人群的工作,家庭和生活认识的反思:人一生到头到底拥有什么,留下了什么。

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