Yi Sheng，Yi Sheng；One Billion Applause ，One Voice
is a two-channel video installation and environment for performance by Luxin Zhang.
The title (Yi Sheng) riffs on the different meanings of characters with similar pronunciation in Chinese: Yi Sheng means “one voice” and doubles as “one billion applause.” Zhang’s video features applause sourced from Chunwan, China Central Television’s annual Spring Festival Gala, which has the largest audience of any entertainment show in the world. The interrelation between performer and audience is explored, and Zhang performs both roles in pursuit of the notion of “Harmony.” The sonic environment, created by both performer and audience, is where the communication starts.
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Read Artist Lane Speidel‘s response to the activation performance of the 2 channel video installation by Luxin Zhang, presented in conjunction with KNEW MEMBER SHOW , Vox Populi Gallery, PA
Appeal and Applause, Becoming and Being, Commanding and Communion: 2 Performances on December 7th
“Each year the newer members of the artist run collective in Philadelphia, Vox Populi are invited to present a show together. In the closing month of the Knew Member Show, I was able to see Luxin Zhang perform within her video installation One Billion Applause/One Voice, Yi Sheng/Yi Sheng as well as a performance by Marion Horowitz, activating her installation Welcome, A Golem for Us.
Luxin sits in stillness in a red dress on a white bench with black hair. The room is dark but there is a light on her. She sits in impossible stillness and peace without stiffness or any sense of waiting. Bending and swaying, hair gently moving and stretching to a recording of her voice singing in beautiful and clear Chinese. Laying down restfully, her movements are soft and graceful. A bent elbow falling off the bench, the underside of a delicate foot reflects a projection of underwater. She begins rising and falling, her arms like seaweed floating to the surface of the ocean. She floats and sinks with the pattern of breath, the video changing to a televised event in which a massive audience is applauding exuberantly. Their faces bust with huge smiles as Luxin softly collapses and rises again as if drowning and sinking under the approval of hundreds of people. The video shifts to a recording of possibly the same crowd of people sitting in stoic, frozen, watchful patience. She continues grasping lightly, reaching towards validation suddenly withheld, or possibly pushing against the unbreaking, watching eyes. Then when they break into happy applause she collapses for the final time.
As we watch the audience watching we are reminded of our own face and eyes, our own blank gazes impenetrably observant. I will reference some quotes from ACOUSMA: Master of Fine Arts Thesis by Luxin Zhang written to complete her MFA degree during her time at Syracuse University in 2018. “In my work, the performer and audience are relative concepts, and their positions are interchangeable, and sometimes they may have multiple roles.” The clips of the audience are constructed from the biggest televised event in China, the Spring Festival. These clips are taken from the broadcast from the year 1989, the year Luxin was born. This was also the year that television became very popular and pervasive in Chinese culture. When we watch the video clips of the audience from the Spring Festival we are watching an audience that is being watched, or has been recorded and watched. Luxin found that for the duration of the “4-hour and 18 minute broadcast, the audience is only shown for a total of 6 minutes”. She plucked those minutes out and sewed them together, creating a portrait of a portrayal of consumption.
We are watching an audience watch something we cannot see. They at points seeming to be possessed by delirious joy, applauding and smiling wide. And then suddenly the are silent. What are they watching? Are they watching us watching themselves watch Luxin? I can’t help but think as a always do when I see a blank watchful face; Are you angry? Do you love me? The video fades and she sits up, facing slightly away from the viewer her hair creating a curtain so we can’t see her face. It makes it that much more startling when her hear her voice which can presumably only come from her hidden face. A song emerges like a sparkling stream coming from the top of a mountain flowing into the sea. Clear and high, unadorned and beautiful she sings in Chinese. What it feels like to experience is more like a sound is coming out of her shape, something crafted in air and rain and cloud impossibly flipped into our earth experience, transposed into our senses as a replacement for something else.
The lyrics translated into English are:
The moon is bright
The wind is quiet
Leaves shade the window
Crickets begin to sing
As beautiful as the violin strings
The moon is bright
The wind is quiet
Cradle swings gently
My little one is having a sweet dream
With a trace of a smile on her face
“As a child, I used to follow my mother everywhere...When she performed in theaters, I would hide behind the stage curtains and listen to her performance and singing on the stage.” As the lullaby flows from her shape, Luxin hides behind the fabric of the curtain as a child and at the same time is hiding behind the threads of a curtain of her hair during this performance. Her voice becomes totally disembodied, we are unable to consume her fully, we can’t see where the sound is resonating from. It becomes like a hallucination, a moment of unreality.
When the sound ends she gets up and guides our eyes over to the opposing black wall. It has a video projects on it of her performing the same movement she did previously. It we see her shadow from the video creating eerie flowing shapes.
Then the performance is over, until a viewer enters the space and sits on the white bench under the spotlight, then they have become the performer and the performance has begun again.
Published to the Vox Populi Website: 12/19/18