Chen Wei shares the inspiration behind his ‘City Visions’ Art Basel presentation

Beijing-based artist Chen Wei recently launched his City Visions presentation at the UBS Lounge at Art Basel 2024. Highlighted in the showcase was his new work, How are you Hong Kong, a digital prizm consisting of three LED panels displaying colloquial greetings used in Hong Kong. Growing up immersed in the influence of Hong Kong pop culture, the piece represents his feelings towards the city.

Known for his photography work, Chen Wei encapsulates the essence of contemporary urban living with a play on LED advertisements, incorporating the inherent glitches in these screens. The LED sculpture represents the shared experience of people living in the metropolis with the movement of the screens capturing the city rhythms.

“Because of the changes in the past few years and the lockdown during the pandemic, I really feel that things have shifted,” Chen Wei tells Lifestyle Asia. “That is why ‘how are you’ came up in my mind – like a friend who I have not seen in a while. During the pandemic, I also received messages and mail with such greetings from friends checking in on me.”

Head below for the full interview with Chen Wei in which he shares his approach to the project, thoughts on his decision to integrate digital glitches, his passion for modular synths, and more.

 

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Did you experiment with other shapes and forms before settling on a vertical bar for How are you, Hong Kong? 在创作竖着的长方形《香港你好吗》之前，您有尝试其他的形状和形式吗？

I have been experimenting with LED sculptures in different shapes, but mostly in rectangles with an LED panel on one side. I have created prisms with three LED panels on each side, but this is my first time creating one of this scale.

我一直在尝试不同形状的LED装置，但大多数都是单面的矩形，三面三角的形式以前我也尝试过，但这个尺寸是第一回。

Could you share stories, sketches, or prototype images of past models leading up to this one that perhaps did not make it to public view? 您能分享一些有关《香港你好吗》的故事，或没有曝光过的草图或模型吗？

Once I accepted the commission project, I decided to create a work related to Hong Kong, or shall I say, the Hong Kong that I know. Because of the changes in the past few years and the lockdown during the pandemic, I really feel that things have shifted. That is why “how are you” came up in my mind – like a friend whom I had not seen in a while. During the pandemic, I also received messages and mail with such greetings from friends checking in on me.

从接到委托开始，我就打算做一件跟香港有关的作品，或者说跟我认识的香港有关。因为这些年的变化，再加上疫情封闭的几年，会有一点时过境迁的感觉，“How are you”这句话就飘在我脑子里，像一个好久不见的朋友，疫情期间我也时常收到这样的问候信息和邮件。

In the introductory video, we saw you experimenting with the colour schemes. How did you settle on this final scheme? 在您的影片，我们有看见您在实验不同的颜色，那最后您是如何决定《香港你好吗》的设计和颜色呢？

The colors are coming from the glitches and errors on the LEDs. In the creation process, I designed the flow of text, and the forms and transformations of the glitches. It is comparable to the rhythm of music – I need to process, grasp, and control the changes of the rhythm and beat, which affect the layers we can read from it. However, many colors from the minor glitches occurred spontaneously during the creation process.

颜色主要还是来自于LED形成故障之后所产生的色彩。里面需要设计的是文字的流动和故障的形态的变化，这其实很像音乐上的律动，我需要去处理把握整体的节奏变化，这关系到我们从中可以阅读到的层次，但很多细微的故障色彩都是在制作过程中随机产生的。

What places in Hong Kong do you wish to visit while you’re here? 您在香港时，您会想去什么地方呢？

I’d like to wander the streets of Sheung Wan and Sai Wan which are areas that I am more familiar with. I’d also like to get Hong Kong-style dessert (tong sui), stroll around Dried Seafood Street, and see the shop cats in the seafood stores. I will also be viewing some exhibitions.

去上环西环的街区走走，我比较熟悉那里。吃糖水，海味街，铺头猫。还得去看一些展览。

In big Asian cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong where we can’t seem to escape from digital displays – whether that be screens or display advertisements – do you see this as unnatural or just part of our evolution? 在亚洲的城市，像是上海、北京、和香港，不论是屏幕或是广告，我们都好像没办法避开数字/数码展示，您觉得这是不自然/人工的现象，还是觉得这就是发展的一部分呢？

 

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I think that this is a characteristic quite distinctive to Asia – these cheaper materials are often readily available. It relates to our city’s rhythm/tempo, and also the way that they have been developing. Particularly for Shanghai and Hong Kong – they are cities of the night, with the inevitability of artificial lights illuminating corners of the city.

这个比较亚洲吧，也都是廉价的即时性材料，跟我们的城市节奏和发展路径也有很直接的关系。尤其是上海和香港，一直都是夜都市，当然少不了点亮都市的各种人造光。

On the topic of electronic errors, what leads you to want to integrate that into your work? 什么原因驱使您把屏幕的故障加到您作品里面?

Before, I had mentioned “city rhythms” which is actually the form of time that we live by default in the city. Faults and errors are often neglected, or even accepted, within our rapid urban tempo. I try to pay attention to this and use it as a vantage point to reassess the image of our communal life. To me, these errors are like glitches in time, and they can look like a moving abstract painting.

前面提到城市节奏，这其实也是一种时间，我们默认的一种城市时间，故障在这样的时间是被忽略的，或者说是被接受的，我试着以它为视角，重看这些与我们共同生活的图像。
它对于我来说，像是时间上的glitch，也是流动的抽象画。

Could you speak a little about your interest in modular synth? How did you get into it and what draws you to it? How has it influenced your visual works? 您能分享一下您对模块合成器的兴趣吗？您是怎样接触到它们和对他们产生兴趣呢？对您的视觉作品有什么影响呢？

They (the modular synth) are my toys, and also my tools to create sound. During the pandemic, they gave me a lot of joy; otherwise, it would have been too depressing. The extended time of isolation allowed me to calm down and focus on music creation, which then fed back to my artistic practice. This influence from music on my art has been present since I started doing photography. Space as captured on images is static and dead, whereas time is ever-moving, and music exists within this fluidity, hence fuelling my artistic creations.

那是我的玩具，也是声音生产工具。疫情封控期间，它们给了我很大的乐趣，不然太沮丧了，我刚好也能静下心回到音乐创作的部分。反哺到视觉，其实应该是声音对视觉的影响，这个影响从我最开始做摄影就一直都在，因为空间是死的，时间是流动的，音乐性在时间之中。

How do you wish your works will be received by viewers at Art Basel? 您希望您在巴塞尔艺术展的作品会给观众什么感觉呢？

I think, I don’t have a lot of expectations. Audiences from different places will read it differently. Having said that, the texts in the work are very direct, including greeting phrases commonly used in Hong Kong.

我觉得，这个我其实并没有太多预期，不同地域的观众看到会不一样，语言是很直接，因为里面使用了香港的日常问候。

Images courtesy of UBS Art