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Distant Dialogues: Sheng Jie / Gogoj ‐ Worldwide FM

Distant Dialogues: Sheng Jie / Gogoj

To participate in the ‘What It Is For Staring?’ project, please submit a video of a subject keeping a fixed gaze on self-chosen object for between 20-30 seconds. Participants shall try their best to avoid eye contact with audiences (including the camera or any other devices employed for recording) and maintain such avoidance for no less than 20 seconds. The object they are staring at should not be a phone, computer or television and the video should not show the object the participant is staring at, only the person staring in their environment. Please submit your video to dialogues@worldwidefm.net with the subject title ‘Staring’.

 

What It Is For Staring?

The work ‘What it Is For Staring?’ means to explore the issue of information interpretation under the impact of mass media by collecting footage that captures different people in their moments of staring at some unknown objects.

The artist will solicit videos from the public in which participants film themselves staring at an unknown self-chosen object. The artist will try to detect and decipher the identity of those objects via expression of music.

Videos submitted to the project are restricted to a duration of no more than 30 seconds. A participant is to be filmed keeping a fixed gaze on self-chosen object which is not a phone, computer or television for at least 20 seconds (they can make a selfie video themselves or ask someone to shoot it for them). Participants shall try their best to avoid eye contact with audiences (including the camera or any other devices employed for recording) and maintain such avoidance for no less than 20 seconds. The video should not show the object the participant is staring at, it only need show the portrait of the person staring.

The artist will shape the final work into a music or sound installation work which contains a subjective scenario rooted in and inspired by those 10 videos that filmed the action of staring, incorporating the mood of the participants during the time of filming. Once completed, the entire piece will be uploaded to social networking services so that audiences world-wide can express their conjectures and understandings through images or text.

‘The journey itself speaks.’ People’s focus of attention under the impact of mass media has shifted already from discovering the truth of information to the process of exploring the individual’s curiosity and continually satisfying their own conjectures. Meanwhile, social networking services not only accelerate such methods of information perception but also shape values and ways of thinking.

 

Aout Sheng Jie / Gogoj


‘Listen’ and ‘Watch’ are two major elements in Beijing artist Sheng Jie’s work, creating a circulatory system of perception in the space. Her creative outlets find many forms, from experimental music, sound, video and painting to film, installation, composition and audio and visual art performance. Sheng Jie founded Shan studio in 2010, is manager of Maybe Ensemble and founded DOT audio-visual art laboratory in 2018.