_____________________________________
Nihilism is A Way to the Desolate Land
This is an article of my in-depth reflection and self-dialogue through my own growth experience. It presents my thoughts, confusions and cognition of my life at different stages of growth experience; and how I felt into nihilism as I was a sunshine man, and finally how I slowly turned from a nihilist to an optimistic existential nihilist. My understanding of the world and my heart's changes would always affect how I explore art and present art. This article is composed of four parts. The first part describes my growth background. The second part is about self-awakening and my resistance to life. The third part is about how I understand and explore the world in a new way. The fourth part is about something change of my cognition to the world.
Spiritual Silence
Photograph
I grew up in an ordinary family, and the education I took from elementary school to high school was academic test-oriented education. It is no difference between other people who study in public schools and me. Before going to university, all the efforts we make are for the college entrance examination so that we can further study at a reputable university. Other than that, there is no more important thing than this, and I haven't thought about anything other out of studying. The requirements of the college entrance examination define who was I during my childhood and youth. Looking back on my experience, I feel I was a negligible product from a production line in the industrial age. My classmates and I seem to be mass-produced. There is no apparent difference between our thoughts because we don't know how to think anything else out of the study, or we don't need to think, because we all live for the college entrance examination. The college entrance examination clearly defines our daily schedule. It becomes the whole meaning of our everyday life. After going to university, the situation has been changed, but it is not an essential change. All my life is still based on academic study.
1
Fountain Series
Photograph
The Flashing Moment 1
Short video
The Flashing Moment 2
Short video
The second stage started with my first job after graduation. At this time, there were some essential changes in my thinking. My horizons were expanded, and I had a lot of time to think about other things out of work and study. I began to look back at my past life and experiences from a new perspective, and began to think about some common philosophical questions but difficult to answer, such as who I am and the meaning of life? Thinking about these questions draw me crazy, but I know that they come from my subconscious and are a kind of resistance to life, because I want to change my destiny and find a sort of spiritual freedom. At that time, I thought I was like a fish in the water, no different from other fish. Water is a metaphor of ideology. It comes from the era and society I live in, shaping my outlook on life and values invisibly. But fish cannot live without water, just like people cannot live without societies. The small fish can represent me, but I realize that the world is not what I knew before, so I want to work hard to explore a real and comprehensive world.
When I start to explore a new spiritual world, it means I need to break through my cognitive boundaries frequently. Here I want to share two stories. The first story is the movie "Room". This movie tells about a girl named Joey kidnapped by a man named Nick and then imprisoned in a basement of Nick's backyard and lasts for seven years. During this period, she was raped and gave birth to her son Jack. Jack doesn't know the truth because he had been living in a small room since he was born. This room is his world, and he has adapted to all the life in the room. However, his mother often suffers mental pain because she knew that the world outside the room was the life she wanted. Later, Joey and Jack were rescued by the police. Joey began to return to a normal life, but Jack often panicked about the real world because many things in the real world are strange to him. He could not communicate with others normally, so he even wanted to return to the room where he had lived for many years. Another story is somewhat similar to this movie. I once bought a couple of parrots. These two parrots were raised in a small cage from birth to growing up. After I brought them home, I wanted to give them freedom, so I opened the cage and tried to let them out, but they were unwilling to come out because the environment outside the cage made them feel strange. For a long period of time, every time I took them out of the cage, they would actively fly into the cage; I thought that the nature of birds would like branches and leaves, but when I brought the branches and leaves next to them, they felt scared and always made some sounds of fright. The movie "Room" and my parrots inspired me to question something I was familiar with in life. I also thought about a series of questions, such as what is normal? What is abnormal? How should we define freedom? How do I face a new spiritual world? What kind of person am I?
Pigeons
Photograph
Here is another reason why people feel pain. The psychoanalyst Freud proposed in the structural theory that the id, ego and superego are the three major parts of a person's spirit. (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego ) We need to balance the relationship between these three in order to live a happy and comfortable life when a certain part of these three become unbalanced, and then we will feel pain. For example, our id and self-level are stronger in childhood and adolescence. After graduating from work, we begin to integrate into society, so our superego level will increase. Superego refers to the ideological relationship between people and society. If the proportion of superego is very large, and the proportion of id is very small, this means that a person's life is almost occupied by social ideology, and he cannot feel his own existence as an independent individual, he can't feel the meaning of living for himself, then he will be depressed.
Spindrift Series
Photograph
Similarly, I felt pain because I can't live in an ideal way and don't want to accept destiny. For a long time, I enjoyed observing some animals in groups and took a lot of photos, such as a group of fish, a group of bees, a group of birds, and then think of everyone in our society. All individuals are small in the group, and there is nothing out of the ordinary. I want to work hard to find a sense of self-existence instead of living in a group as an ordinary individual. At the same time, I often like to take a walk on the beach to watch the ebb and flow of the tide, and I like to watch the stars in the sky. Maybe my subconscious hope I can think about who I am from a macro perspective, and then break away from the ideology given to me by the current society and the times. The process of thinking is also a process of recognizing oneself. It is a kind of self-awakening, and then working hard to find a sense of self-existence, and to explore the meaning of oneself and the meaning of life. Self-awakening means that I need to continually deny my original cognition and then recognize myself and accept new ideas. This is an excruciating process, but I can feel that I am alive through it, just like the philosopher Nietzsche. Said: "People are most awake when they are the most painful." There is a noticeable change in my artwork during this period; there is no central subject on my artworks. Because every individual is small, even the stars at night are small and transitory relative to the universe.
Following my inner guidance, I started to pay attention to Taoism and Buddhism's philosophy. There is a word in Buddhism called "Origin". (缘起Origin https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BC%98%E8%B5%B7/230955?fr=aladdin) It means that all things, phenomena, and all social activities are karma and combination. They are all in a continuous relationship of karma, and they are born and die according to certain conditions. Origin is the starting point of Buddhist thought and the theoretical basis shared by all schools of Buddhism. Buddhism uses this to explain the internal laws of the variability, birth and death of all things in the universe, society and even various spiritual phenomena. Confucian thought guides us how to deal with the relationship between ourselves and society; Taoist thought guides us how to deal with the relationship between ourselves and nature; Buddhist thought guides us how to deal with the relationship between ourselves and our hearts. (Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_teachings ) At the same time, I also read some related scientific articles, trying to understand the material world further. Among them, the most important influence on my cognition is the scientific knowledge of theoretical physics and the scientific knowledge of life cytology. Theoretical physicists believe that the universe currently observed by human beings only accounts for 5% of the real universe. 95% is composed of dark matter and dark energy. We cannot directly observe their existence but can confirm their existence. (Https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy ) Life cytology reveals that cells are made of molecules, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(biology) Molecules are made of atoms. Proton is a small part of the atom, the neutron is a small part of the proton, the electron is a small of part of the neutron, the photon is a small part of the electron, gluon is a small part of the photon, and quark is a small part of the gluon. Quark is the smallest element that can be observed by humans so far. It can be seen from this that the microscopic world can be infinitely small, just like the macroscopic universe. Our understanding of them depends on our ability to observe them. When I tried to understand our material world in-depth, my inner sense of emptiness became stronger and stronger. Besides, my sense of nothingness also comes from many sources. For example, we use scientific methods to understand the world in our education, but science cannot reasonably explain QuantumEntanglement. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiQuantum_entanglement#:~:text=Quantum%20entanglement%20is%20a%20physical,including%20when%20the%20particles%20are). This is a weird phenomenon, such as a couple of quantum, one quantum changes, no matter how far away the other quantum is, it will change accordingly in an instant. The changes between them will not be affected by time and space. It can be said that it is a superpower that transcends time and space.
Flicker 1
Photograph
Flicker 2
Photograph
It is worth mentioning that one more thing influenced me. The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by the biologist Richard Dawkins. (Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gE_IPTXznM) This book introduces the existence of genes is to obtain the greatest chance of survival, which affects the decisions we make and our views of life. Furthermore, I pay attention to the relationship between matter and energy. They are interchangeable. The matter is a form that we can observe, but in fact, it can be converted into energy and then converted into a new form. For example, plants can provide energy to animals in the biosphere, and animal excrement can also nourish plants. That is why humans are able to eat countless different kinds of food. Because the core of different foods are carbohydrates and some basic elements, and the shape and taste of food are just externalization forms. Also, I continue to think about who I am from a biological level. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oocunV4JX4w) Humans and animals are composed of countless cells. Still, cells are not the smallest unit of existence, because cells are composed of molecules, and molecules are not the smallest existence unit. It can be seen from this that cells and molecules do not exist on the level of self, and they are composed of other elements. On the other hand, cells are constantly growing and apoptotic. All cells in our body become a new kind of cell every seven years. That is to say, from a biological perspective, All the cells in our body will become completely new cells every seven years. In other words, from a biological perspective, we already become two completely different person in every seven years ago. The question is, when do we become another person? This reminds me of a philosophical question which is the Ship of Theseus,(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus) If we replace a part of the one ship every day until everything on the ship is not the original. There are two questions worth to think. Is this ship still the original one? If it is not, when does it become another ship?
Flicker 3
Photograph
Interstellar
Short video
During this period, I was burdened with many thoughts. I became particularly fond of being alone, and I also yearned to live in Iceland and the Faroe Islands for a while. ( A travelling video of The Faroe Islands on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qinWJqgGMw) Because Iceland and the Faroe Islands give me a peaceful feeling, maybe is the place where I can stay away from modern civilization and the existing ideology, I imagined removing all the labels and thoughts burden from myself and then recognizing myself. At the same time, I especially like watching science fiction movies which bring me into a new spiritual world in a short period of time. Only in this way can I forget who I am, and enjoy peace in a short period of time. For example, my favourite sci-fi movies include Blade Runner, Alien series, WestWorld, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar and so on.
I am full of curiosity about the world, so I pay much attention to learning. However, that knowledge I can't absorb will become a kind of burden that bother my mental health. Then I realized I was gradually becoming a minimalist, （https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism） because of my inner desire for peace. During this period, my paintings have become minimalism, and they are reflections of my state of mind. My work's visual effect is composed of a large amount of black and a small amount of white. I felt everything is tiny. I began to believe in fatalism and realized that many things in life are destined or difficult to change. Everyone has times when they are powerless. For example, why we are born with two eyes, two ears, one nose, and one mouth; we can find countless problems like this in our lives.
Untitled Series
Oil on canvas
Untitled
Short video
Time
Short video
I considered myself as a tree. I don't know why I came into this world; I only know that I don't know anything including myself and the world, so does the tree, but it knows what kind of leaves to grow, what kind of flowers to bloom and when, and what it will have fruit. When I imagined that I was a tree, I could feel a peaceful feeling inside my heart, which helped me face and accept the uncertainty in life. Perhaps these philosophical issues t do not exist, but we created these issues and then turned them into the shackles of our hearts. For example, for plants, they have no idea about emotion; for water, time does not exist to it, because water does not deteriorate due to time; for the mayfly, spring, summer, autumn and winter do not exist to them, because their life is transient. They only live several hours from birth to death; for fish, the sky and land do not exist because the fish always live in the water. By comparing these examples, I realized that from a macro point of view, human beings' existence is transitory, and we know that our modern civilization has only achieved rapid development in the last one or two hundred years. This is why we still can't understand life and the universe. Compared to the universe, humans are similar to mayflies born in the morning, so it doesn't know what night and four festivals are. I hope I dare to face these philosophical issues that have been plagued me. I want to acknowledge and accept their existence and coexist with them for a long time. On the contrary, it is not always trying to solve these problems. Finally, I turn my knowledge and thinking into my outlook on life and values, which are presented through the expression of my artworks.