Portal
Portal explores thresholds as ruptures in form, space, and perception. The projec began with my obsession with the fluorescent green EXIT sign that glows in every movie theatre. This sign is an index of departure that coexists with the projected image. Like Lucio Fontana’s slashes, the EXIT is both disruption and invitation because it reminds us that there is always a portal beyond the frame.
From this opening, the work summons the figure of the rat-spirit not just as a characte but as a logic of navigation. Filmed entirely in a pitch-black cinema using a far-infrared camera, the imagery withdraws from the visible spectrum. Bodies register only as
residues that are blurred, uneven, and unstable. The performer moves with a rodent-like tactility to sense the world through touch and smell rather than visual domination.
The installation unfolds as a series of haunted fragments. A three-channel vide interweaves seemingly unrelated iPhone footage including small openings in daily life, thermal blurs, and ritualistic acts recorded in the aftermath of my grandmother's
sudden death and the Ghost Festival in mid-July. These images appear and reappear like phantoms in my mind as a haunting that refuses to settle.
This dialogue with the unseen extends to two large-scale textile prints. These image emerged from a skotography (spirit photography) workshop with Shannon Taggart. Created in the darkroom, they document a session where we attempted to summon
spirits. In that darkness, it was the rat-spirit I called upon, capturing its trace on the material.
The motif of separation takes physical form in two CRT monitors that sit back-to-back. They play a dialogue between my mother and me regarding my caesarean
birth. Positioned so the screens cannot face one another, the installation mirrors ou circuitous communication. It operates as a loop of memory and a cut that refuses to close.
The sound and voiceover mirror this fragmentation. Resonating with Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of the wild tongue, the narration refuses to translate. Fractures are deliberately produced, initiating a recursive slippage where languages shadow and fold into one
another. Through these fluid shifts, the work shapes a sensory experience wher meaning is held in suspension.
Portal refuses to offer a final conclusion. This approach resonates with George Bataille’s vision of death not as an end but as a return to the continuity of being. In this spirit, the work behaves less as a container than as a site of continuous negotiation. It
is a passage that keeps opening.
Credits for Portal
Performer: Yuxi Jiang
Costume Design: Linglong Wang
Sound Design: Eye Suriyanon
Voiceover: Lydia Davies & Wei Zhou
Color Grading: Poppy Hobbs
Portal explores thresholds as ruptures in form, space, and perception. The projec began with my obsession with the fluorescent green EXIT sign that glows in every movie theatre. This sign is an index of departure that coexists with the projected image. Like Lucio Fontana’s slashes, the EXIT is both disruption and invitation because it reminds us that there is always a portal beyond the frame.
From this opening, the work summons the figure of the rat-spirit not just as a characte but as a logic of navigation. Filmed entirely in a pitch-black cinema using a far-infrared camera, the imagery withdraws from the visible spectrum. Bodies register only as
residues that are blurred, uneven, and unstable. The performer moves with a rodent-like tactility to sense the world through touch and smell rather than visual domination.
The installation unfolds as a series of haunted fragments. A three-channel vide interweaves seemingly unrelated iPhone footage including small openings in daily life, thermal blurs, and ritualistic acts recorded in the aftermath of my grandmother's
sudden death and the Ghost Festival in mid-July. These images appear and reappear like phantoms in my mind as a haunting that refuses to settle.
This dialogue with the unseen extends to two large-scale textile prints. These image emerged from a skotography (spirit photography) workshop with Shannon Taggart. Created in the darkroom, they document a session where we attempted to summon
spirits. In that darkness, it was the rat-spirit I called upon, capturing its trace on the material.
The motif of separation takes physical form in two CRT monitors that sit back-to-back. They play a dialogue between my mother and me regarding my caesarean
birth. Positioned so the screens cannot face one another, the installation mirrors ou circuitous communication. It operates as a loop of memory and a cut that refuses to close.
The sound and voiceover mirror this fragmentation. Resonating with Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of the wild tongue, the narration refuses to translate. Fractures are deliberately produced, initiating a recursive slippage where languages shadow and fold into one
another. Through these fluid shifts, the work shapes a sensory experience wher meaning is held in suspension.
Portal refuses to offer a final conclusion. This approach resonates with George Bataille’s vision of death not as an end but as a return to the continuity of being. In this spirit, the work behaves less as a container than as a site of continuous negotiation. It
is a passage that keeps opening.
Credits for Portal
Performer: Yuxi Jiang
Costume Design: Linglong Wang
Sound Design: Eye Suriyanon
Voiceover: Lydia Davies & Wei Zhou
Color Grading: Poppy Hobbs
