Qiao Space Talk｜Lecture-“Li Liao: Anacatesthesia” Q&A with the audience

Audience: I understand, there are always typhoons in my hometown, and many people go after them.

Li Liao: Yes, this is actually a kind of animal nature that people are born with. There was an artist, I think he was from Syria (note: Li Liao said Francis Alÿs, from Belgium, not Syria), who would follow the eye of the typhoon and rush in to shoot it, I like that artist.

Audience: I saw a lot of videos online during the epidemic about animals taking over the streets, and then you just talked about this animalistic nature, which makes me think that you would also have a feeling of wanting to take over the streets?

Li Liao: I’m sure you do, especially when you can walk on the double yellow line, which is a very representative symbol, many things are already very unusual, because when can people walk on the double yellow line and juggle like this.

Audience member: I’m actually curious about the fact that a tin was made in front of each video, and they’re actually very similar to the materials used in many of the urban infrastructures in the video. So you wanted to have something like this, did you have any idea of the length or size you chose?

Li Liao: The size and length is just because it fits, it’s just the right size. If you enlarge it, it may be a different feeling.

Audience: I personally feel that having an installation like this actually changes the way the audience looks at it.

Li Liao: Of course I didn’t think about this when I was making the work, but when I thought about how to display it, I started to search for what I remembered, or what felt more appropriate. This blue tin was used during the epidemic when the road was closed, for example, when the entrance of our alley was closed, a big wooden frame was built with this blue tin, and then some tin was brought in, which could be seen everywhere, including the video, so I thought there was no other choice, this was the only choice. It actually creates a kind of partition, but in addition, it is also like a channel.

II

Li Liao: This work was made during the epidemic when I was stuck in my hometown Honghu. At that time, after the city was closed, there were no cars on the whole road, and there were very few people. When you went out to buy something, you took your pass and went to the supermarket, and the whole city was empty, and you found that you could walk on the top of the road because there were no cars. Then you’re walking down the road and you realize, hey? There are double yellow lines, you can step on top of the double yellow lines. This kind of situation can not be encountered in the past, I think the double yellow line representation is quite strong, I feel like playing on the double yellow line, juggling a little. This is also part of my “I Don’t Know” series, this is “I Don’t Know 2020”, so most of the time I don’t have a specific thing to express, I don’t know, I just want to do these things. I don’t know, I just want to do these things. I’m in this scenario, and I feel like this is something I wish I could do.

Audience: Is it fun? Is that a consideration?

Li Liao: If we talk about it simply, fun is definitely an important reason, but sometimes it’s not just fun, it can be a work.

Audience: It’s actually fun to shake the bar, have you practiced this?

Li Liao: I was in a friend’s movie last year and he let me play a little. At that time I played, I found that I played very stable. As long as I think I do not let it fall, it will never fall. You can play until the end of the people have stopped, the rod also stopped, into a state of relaxation; I just stare at the rod, the surrounding area is all vaporized.

Tenderness

Li Liao: I made this work because I saw a man with a bluetooth headset communicating with a tree before. When he was wearing the headset, he was talking to the other party on the phone, and the other party was definitely complaining about him, and then he felt that he was under a lot of pressure. Because a middle-aged male, he is in the bottleneck of his career, a little up and down, in the company pressure must be very high, and then said he went to work every morning very early, and came back very late at night, “Why do not you understand me a little?” “I have those things, not at all what you think,” and so on. Simply because the reason for going to work did not have time to explain those things, the other party will certainly continue to escalate to complain. This incident made his emotions very intense. When I saw it at the time, I was not too sure about the matter itself. But I stood by and was moved for half a day. So I wrote a basic script, mainly to pinpoint the emotions. The language of the script is very simple, just a little script of the scenes I remember, and then how the emotion rises to where, and then down to where.

Audience: I have a question, you opened this performance today, are there all the back? Or will the actor’s act today be in video form?

Li Liao: There is no more behind, I will let the audience become actors. I will put a headset on the top, Bluetooth headphones, put on the shelf, and then everyone put on a listen, which is all kinds of rejection of your voice.

Audience: is it the same as what the actors hear?

Li Liao: There is no audio in the actor’s headphones.

Audience: Where did the voice of rejection come from?

Li Liao: I collected it from everywhere, I asked my friends to record it or something. Then you will face the tree, you will hear all kinds of rejection sounds, feel that the tree is rejecting you, your heart will “clang, clang, clang” sink.

I Don’t Know 20191226

In 2019, a lot of news reports came out saying that pork was very expensive, and then this phone was one of the latest Apple phones, the most expensive iPhone XI pro at the time. so these two things seem to me to have some kind of reciprocal relationship – a very expensive pork and a very trendy phone, and then with dressing as a homeless person The two things seemed to me to have some sort of equivalence – a very expensive pork and a very trendy phone, and then with the character dressed as a homeless man going around the street rubbing it. All the shots were taken from the perspective of a passerby, actually giving the viewer on the road a sense of perspective. That is, probably because they saw a very strange person, a very strange thing, the audience did not know it was filming, so they deliberately let the camera hidden.

A Note of Wuhan

Audience: Is there a kind of rebellion against the existing rules, like the slapping you did in China before and the work “A Note on Wuhan”?

Li Liao: Yes, the so-called absurdity is actually a breakthrough of the context, or what about it. But more than that, as I said when I talked to the audience earlier, there are always two things that sell in the work, one is very clear what I am doing, and the other is that I am not very clear what I am doing. You like that fight is a little unclear is what is in, but also think that this thing is want to do, but often end up very like this do not know what to do to make things. Because after knowing it, it’s like a production, just like when I did the work of locking myself under a white collar, I actually knew what I wanted to express, the white collar was working above, I was locked downstairs; we are a reciprocal relationship, in fact they are also locked with something, this logical relationship can be very clear to explain. Of course there are many people who like it, but I personally feel that it is about making a piece of work, and there are still some differences. This “One Note” tends to be a kind of reality, or a kind of absurdity of ordinary society and ordinary events. But when this everyday absurdity is put out in a different context, it will produce a distinction and its absurdity will come out. The logical relationship is not so big, like saying what am I going to do according to what, there is no such thing. On the contrary, because of the emotion and emotional relationship at that time, many times the mood was in such a key, and then such an emotional action in daily life – slapping – was brought to a public space and turned into a state like a performance, so It becomes a kind of absurdity in the ordinary event that I am talking about.

Audience: Do you think this has any influence on the region?

Li Liao: Yes, you feel the environmental aura differently in different places. I obviously wanted to create in Wuhan, so I kept saying that I tried to avoid going to Wuhan. Because this thing of wanting to create seems to be a bit of a problem, you know, right? You can’t talk about how we’re doing every day, it’s meaningless, that’s the feeling.

Audience: This exhibition is also called “Near the Country”, it is also related to the locality?

Li Liao: Yes.