Wednesday, November 25, 2009

from Lyon: Lin Yilin

A man travelling down a busy-street in broad daylight, shackled to himself, his wrist bound to his ankle through handcuffs, speaks to a societal condition, a current state of affairs. Past countless pedestrians and manned vehicles, an actor walks obviously impaired, either stared at or ignored. No assistance provided, no concern expressed.



This is a performance; to be more precise, this is a re-enactment of a very real event witnessed by Chinese artist Lin Yiln in his own country in 2006. Yilin was affected by the watching of such an occurrence, a supposed criminal handicapped through the physical restraint placed on him by the plainclothes officer accompanying him down the street. In this event the artist recognized a public indecency, a humiliation of such power that it raised some very basic yet important questions about the everyday scenes of absurdity and the roles we all take in shaping such circumstances.

“All I want is for the public to think of the situation of humanity today,” Yilin says. In recreating the situation, Yilin followed a handcuffed actor, recreating the original scene only with the presence of a police officer or official, trailing him with a video camera. No questions were raised about the man or him being recorded.

The video was displayed along with a large series of still photographs. The imagery expounds upon the same sombre point, serving to remind or even force the viewer to deal with the content that’s presented, to make sense of this handcuffed man. The work itself is titled One Day, elucidating the reality of the replication, helping to assert the felt significance through a perceived lack of collective specialness. In reflection, the poignant question of how human behaviour and social norms could lead to an acceptance of persons publicly stripped of their dignity and what this means for our capacity to empathize.



Lin Yiln remarked, “We are both actors and spectators.” Just as easily as such an objectification could be placed on an individual, so could the reverse happen, where all are in turn subjected to a previously spectated event. In the artists’ assertion, responsibility is mutually shared as are the roles of power and manipulation. Without any direct ethical statements, wrongness can be understood through a removal of a basic right, that being to stand up straight.

In this work, no defence is made for the criminal, the circumstances, or society at large. Rather, this is just a portrayed reality to be individually processed. No conclusions are provided, no particular point directly stated. In the honesty of recreating, the evidence exists for the remarking upon the real, the moving and captured image of arrest becoming powerful in it’s presentation, possibly allowing for a greater moment of consideration than could be achieved in real time.

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