Wang Haiyang

Golden Breath, 2016, single-channel video (color, sound), 54'' loop

In a series of works from the same year, artist Wang Haiyang began to regard stop-motion animation as a record of various forms of abstract utterance—images that are highly charged yet ambiguously directed, capable of slipping easily beyond the grasp of language, and as fleeting as dust. In Golden Breath, the artist fills a dark chamber with gold glitter. Each frame results from a silent disturbance caused by the artist blowing air into the box. A strobe light is triggered at regular intervals, and its momentary overexposure dissolves the glitter’s materiality, rendering it into a shimmering, illusory golden realm. This work should be understood as the documentation of an experiment. Within an enclosed setting, the artist sculpts time itself; all things are subjected to an absolutely controlled rhythm. For the artist, the work conceals a reflection on the tension between human free will and the uncontrollable correlations inherent in life.