People tend to analyze objects separately when seeing clear images; when we are nearsighted and see blurry images, we tend to analyze the whole picture as a unity. When I was wandering and observing with my nearsighted eyes in downtown Shanghai, I felt unsafe and alienated. What I saw was a concoction of people walking towards me, passing me, and cold and warm neon lights indicating the invasion of modern consumerist symbols. I don't really think this is because of reverse culture shock, but it does strike me as odd since this is my own culture and place where I’ve lived for years. I reason this may be the influence of the symbolic big Other defined by Jacques Lacan.
I recorded my walk in first-person perspective and intentionally blurred the focus in the video.
This video is to access my direct voice and put it into the context of current aesthetics and values, leaving the extraction of meaning and valuation to the audience
In the video, the world became a reflection of a continuous set of blurry images brought by me, and thus my desire and the shadow that I deem to be true. If this is what happens, am I not refusing the world being itself? If so, then this video is like poems or other imagery – the merging of the self-sufficient world and I.
This is the privatization of the world I’m talking about, it seems common and unavoidable. Eager to capture where the merging has naturally existed in this world. This video is not edited, as this is indeed an inter-subject and trans-subject experience where countless merging of subjectivity of people(esp. mine) and objectivity of the world takes place.