Eva Wang
Eva Wang holds Master of Letters in Fine Art Practice from Glasgow School of Art and Graduate Diploma in Fine Art with distinction from Royal College of Art. She is a photographer using emotions to connect with the world. Common themes are emotions or situations we cannot fully control. Most work is staged conceptual photography which can involve installation and sculpture. She tries to recreate and capture abstract emotions by exploring their connections and interactions with physical objects and the environment.
Merging
Digital Photographs
2021
The action of using body to touch as many objects as possible in the space is explored in Merging, which shows how self cannot accept the distinction between the body and everything else and the desire of merging the body with all the surroundings to achieve the sense of unity.
Hold/Held
Digital Photographs
2021
The inability to accept the disconnection from other is further explored in the relationship between the body and domestic space in Hold/Held, a series of digital photos. The idea of getting in touch with the space all the time is inspired by Rebecca Horn’s body extension work especially Finger Gloves.[1] I use a yarn to connect all the area in the domestic space my body once touch through my daily movement, so that my body will not be disconnected from the space in any time or experience. Yarn is used for weaving, which relates to connecting well. The use of yarn is also influenced by my reading about Mary Klages’ lecture “Jacques Lacan” that is related to Freud’s idea:
In a case study which appears in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud talks about his nephew, aged about 18 months, who is playing a game with a spool tied with yarn. The kid throws the spool away, and says “Fort”, which is German for “gone.” He pulls the spool back in, and says “Da,” which is German for “here.” Freud says that this game was symbolic for the kid, a way of working out his anxiety about his mother’s absence.
The visualization of the trace of my movement is also inspired by The Fold by Deleuze:
To have or to possess is to fold, in other words, to convey what one contains ‘with a certain power.’[2]
The movement is similar to folding, which consists of one’s experience or existence physically. Domestic space is a container to body. The sense of unity or non-separation is also a sense of being contained. The attachment between the movement to the space shows the desire of being united with the container. However, the more attached one’s existence is to the container through time, the less functional the container becomes, influenced by Valie Export’s We are prisoners of our own making.[3] I am not able to go out with the yarn because it cannot survive outside the container. This attachment makes me unable to enter the society. At the end, as the yarn gets used up, the body cannot move forward without letting go of the connection or go backward because it is to unfold the trace, which is to erase one’s experience or existence and break past connections eventually. The inability to accept the loss makes me unable to become a being, inspired by The Fold by Deleuze:The true opposite of the self is not the non-self, it is the mine; the true opposite of being, that is, the having, is not the non-being, but the had.[4]
[1] ‘How Rebecca Horn expanded the boundaries of the human body’, Sandra Beate Reimann https://www.artbasel.com/news/rebecca-horn-museum-tinguely-koerperfantasien-art-basel [Accessed 18 July 2021].
[2] Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (London: Continuum, 2003).
[3] Roswitha Mueller, ‘Screen Embodiments: Valie Export’s ‘Syntagma’’, Discourse, vol. 13, no.2 (1991), < https://www.jstor.org/stable/41389185> [Accessed: 18 July 2021] p. 44.
[4] Deleuze, p. 125.
Blob
Digital Photographs
2021
The lack of ability to distinguish between my body and other and accept the loss of my dependence makes me unable to become a subject or self. I am only a belonging or an object in this situation where it has got no control over while other or object manipulates the body. The desire of keeping the shape of the unity with the supportive objects is materialized using cling film to wrap the objects and the body to form a visual unity, influenced by Man Ray’s L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse, the fashion show Lumps and Bumps by Rei Kawakubo and Merce Cunningham in Antic Meet.[1] Cling film also tells the clingy characteristic of the self in a relationship which eventually causes too much pressure to other and drives other away. A series of digital photographs Blob shows the desire of not letting go of the support, the rejection of separation and the result of disabling the function of the body. There is a conflict between the natural desire and the knowledge of its futility. The nature wins over in this situation in some degrees. But the result still shows the state of being stuck and the body cannot become a subject of self this way.
[1] My view on this has been inspired by my reading of ‘L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse’, Man Ray (1972) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/man-ray-lenigme-disidore-ducasse-t07957 [Accessed 17 July 2021]. ‘Lumps and Bumps at Comme des Garçons S/S97’, Osman Ahmed (5 January 2016) https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/8174/lumps-and-bumps-at-comme-des-garcons-s-s97 [Accessed 17 July 2021]. ‘The Muscle of Art: How Cunningham and Rauschenberg Inspire Us to Flex’, Abigail Sebaly (1 December 2011) https://walkerart.org/magazine/the-muscle-of-art-how-cunningham-and-rauschen [Accessed 17 July 2021].
Quit It
Moving Images
Duration: 23:12, 23:12, 23:12
2021
I still cannot let go of the desire of a unity, a non-separation, a merging with others. There is the desire of getting somewhere and the futility of meaningless attempts or erasing separation, otherness, boundary, space, or gap. The inability to accept the absence makes me think of trying to sit on a chair that does not exist, put things on a table that does not exist, and hang things on a hook that does not exist. Their absence shows a loss of support and the repetition of the attempts only to fall suggests I am unable to accept the separation.[1]The visual of falling is inspired by Mona Hatoum’s Under Siege.[2] The effect of absence is influenced by Jennifer Doyle’s writing about Franko B’s I Miss You!:
In walking down the aisle alone, Franko B performs a union with an absence, for an audience. In this sense, the performance locates itself in the agonistics of the melodramatic conclusion as one attempts to absorb loss, the gap between what one wants and what one has.[3]
Other is a mediation to feel my existence while I am unable to differentiate them, which reminds me of the illusion a camera, also a mediation to see oneself, can cause, like the illusion of complete unity other may provide self. The illusion of sitting on a chair, putting a cup on a table, and hanging clothes on a rack while everything falls but I keep trying is showed in the series of moving images, Quit It.
[1] Eirini Kartsaki, Repetition in Performance: Returns and Invisible Forces (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 2017).
[2] ‘Under Siege’, Mona Hatoum (1982) http://www.reactfeminism.org/entry.php?l=lb&id=65&wid=290&e=t&v=&a=&t= [Accessed 17 July 2021].
[3] Jennifer Doyle, Hold It Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013).
Can You Direct Me, Please
Moving Images
Duration: 29:24, 29:24, 29:24, 29:24
2021
The inability to accept the detachment of my mind from other leaves my body directionless, influenced by Lacan’s theory:
But of course this is impossible, because that lack, or absence, the sense of “other”ness, is the condition for the body becoming a self/subject, a functioning cultural being.[1]
The constant failure of daily tasks shows the constant desire of getting directed in Can You Direct Me, Please, a series of moving images. The blue-green tone is inspired by Wong Kar-wai’s films, which conveys the negative and uncomfortable emotions.The repetition of the sound in the moving images adds the effect of annoyance, frustration, and anxiety. It also shows the passage of time. There is no end of the action because I just want to show the moment of the state of being stuck or trapped while the body just cannot let it go, which further suggests its restlessness and the desire to be directed. It is mentioned in a group tutorial that the body was felt like a robot, not being able to operate or recognize to be a person in the world. It is where this work is successful because it is what I want to express. The body is without mind, and it relies on other to direct it. The condition that I cannot accept the disconnection from other who my mind is attached to disables the functionality of myself as a cultural being in the world.
[1] Mary Klages, “Jacques Lacan,” (Lecture Notes, University of Colorado).
Can You Seat Me, Please
Digital Photographs
2021
Can You Seat Me, Please consists of five digital photographs, exploring the anxious desire of getting positioned or fixed by other, inspired by Lacan’s theory:
This sense of self, and its relation to others and to Other, sets you up to take up a position in the Symbolic order, in language. Such a position allows you to say “I”, to be a speaking subject. “I” (and all other words) have a stable meaning because they are fixed, or anchored, by the Other/Phallus/Name-of-the-Father/Law, which is the center of the Symbolic, the center of language.[1]
Physically, I cannot keep still at a position because of my anxiety. My mind and body are separate and misplaced. I am not able to position or settle myself. This unfulfilled desire of getting positioned is presented through my attempts of seating myself properly as chair is the only daily object designed for humans to be settled awake.
[1] Mary Klages, “Jacques Lacan,” (Lecture Notes, University of Colorado).
Hold/Held
Moving Images
Duration: 0:13, 0:13, 0:13, 0:13, 0:13
2021
The dependence of my self-existence on others is the reason why I am holding on to the relationship although it is hurting me. It falls to a conflict of holding on to an illusion of self-existence and its damage to my actual existence.[1] In the series of moving images, Hold/Held, I use mirror to stand for the fragile relationship as a mediation for self-existence. The physical state where the body cannot move unless dropping and breaking the mirror held on to is inspired by Erwin Wurm’s photographic sculptures.[2] The capture of separate body parts fits better in the idea of using pieces of mirror to see oneself and creates a sense of fragmented existence instead of wholeness, which shows the body lacks self-domination further. The position is set to be holding and kissing that indicates the theme of relationship. The use of the medium of moving images instead of still images demonstrates the difficulty of holding better.
[1] ‘A Narcissist’s Love Letter’, John Howell (25 May 2013) https://thoughtcatalog.com/john-w-howell/2013/05/a-narcissists-love-letter/[Accessed 25 February 2021].
[2] ‘One Minute Sculpture’, Erwin Wurm (1997) https://www.erwinwurm.at/artworks/photographic-sculptures.html [Accessed 23 March 2021].
Parasite
Digital Photographs
2021
Domestic space is also materialized mental space that I do not belong to or dominate. Within the emptiness of both the mental and physical interior, it takes constant effort to attempt to occupy, inhabit and learn to control my own identity as well as the space where I am supposed to be the host. However, the desire and inability of dwelling leads to the inevitability of restlessness, homelessness and despair.[1] I live as a parasite depending on a host dominating or saving me. The concept of the parasite is inspired by Bong Joon-ho’s film, Parasite, where the poor families rely on a wealthy family secretly while they can never become the host of the fancy house or their own living.[2] In my series of images, Parasite, I hide at different locations. My body form is shaped by the surroundings, influenced by VALIE EXPORT’s Body Configurations (1972-1982), where she positions her body to fit in a variety of outdoor environments.[3]
[1] My view on this has been inspired by my reading of Cynthia Wall, ‘Gendering Rooms: Domestic Architecture and Literary Arts’, in The Domestic Space Reader, eds. by Chiara Briganti and Kathy Mezei (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2012), pp.330-35 (p.332-333). Victor Buchli, ‘Architecture and Modernism’, in Handbook of Material Culture, eds. by Tilley, Keane, Küchler, Rowlands and Spyer, pp. 254-66 (p. 259).
[2] Joon-ho, Bong, dir., Parasite (2019; Seoul: CJ Entertainment, 2019), https://whatsonsidsmind.com/2020/02/14/parasite-2019-movie-review-visual-poetry-and-a-masterclass-in-filmmaking/ [Accessed 20 March 2021].
[3] My view on this has been inspired by my reading of VALIE EXPORT The 1980 Venice Biennale Works, Thaddaeus Ropac, 2019. ‘VALIE EXPORT The 1980 Venice Biennale Works’, Thaddaeus Ropac https://ropac.net/exhibitions/24-valie-export-the-1980-venice-biennale-works/ [Accessed 20 March 2021].
Off
Digital Photographs
2021
The lack of independence is felt strongest in a relationship where my mind is taken to heaven or left to hell within a second completely decided by the other. I feel my worth is defined by the other, who can make me feel my existence in the world as well as the other way around, influenced by Lacan’s theory about self and other.[1] In my photographic project OFF, the passivity of the sense of self passes on to the body function where the body becomes a part of a selection of objects that depend on another element to turn dynamically alive instantly. They are also all produced to be owned and used, which proves further that their value is not up to themselves.[2] Objectification of the body has been applied for many artworks of different artists, a lot of which are about feminism. Although this work is easily related to feminism as it is a female body in a domestic space, it is not a theme I am trying to address. It can also apply to a male body, but a female body relates to me better. I think what makes this series of photos different is the selection of the objects and the balanced amount of adaptation of both the body and the objects.
[1] Mary Klages, “Jacques Lacan,” (Lecture Notes, University of Colorado).
[2] Dinah Eastop, ‘Conservation as Material Culture’, in Handbook of Material Culture, eds. by Tilley, Keane, Küchler, Rowlands and Spyer, pp. 516-33 (p.524).
That’s Just How It Goes
GUM
Digital Photographs
2020
I MISS YOU
Moving Images
Duration: 0:03, 0:03, 0:03, 0:03, 0:03, 0:03, 0:03, 0:03, 0:03, 0:03
2020
TEA
Moving Images
Duration: 32:36, 1:59:14, 6:02, 3:37, 6:58, 4:06, 4:48, 1:47, 4:46, 0:36
2020
That’s Just How It Goes consists of two series of moving images, I miss you and Tea, and a series of digital photographs, Gum. It explores the irretrievable affection that is consumed bit by bit. Inspired by I Am Sitting in a Room by Alvin Lucier, where repeatedly recording a word eventually makes the word unrecognisable, a similar way of degradation to videos is applied in I miss you with the repeated recording and playing of a video of my eye while saying “I miss you” between a camera and laptop.[1] Gum contains seventy photos that show the process of how a gumball machine full of colorful gumballs becomes unappealing with tasteless chewed gum sticked all over it. The nature of quality loss is also showed in the series of moving images, Tea where color and taste of tea fade every time it is steeped.
[1] ‘Collecting Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room’, Martha Joseph (20 January 2015) https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2015/01/20/collecting-alvin-luciers-i-am-sitting-in-a-room/ [Accessed 23 March 2021].
Clothes
Digital Photographs
2021
Emotionally, I cannot depend on myself or put myself together. Physically, it is a state where there is no bone my body can attach to. The projected physical condition of my body where no structure is contained reminds me of clothes that do not contain a body, which are formless and easily manipulated. Clothing and a body are both containers, the value of whose existence depends on what is contained.[1] The relation between the body and clothes is also influenced by Wong Kar-wai’s film, Chungking Express, where a dumped character talks to some objects as if they are emotional.[2] Human emotions are projected to objects in this film while the human body is objectified to convey emotions in my series of photographs, Clothes. The process of cleaning clothes to function is similar to my daily activities of showering, drying, tidying up, getting organized and becoming ready to deal with the outside world, both of which rely on others. In Clothes, I apply the process of cleaning clothes to function to my body. Even though the clothes or the body have gone through the process and seem ready to function, the body still lacks inner domination as the clothes are waiting for a body to wear them. Therefore, the shape of the body that is not solid still depends on another object. This state of the body is also visualised in Butoh dance where the body is regarded as a soft container of liquid.[3]
[1] Jean-Pierre Warnier, ‘Inside and Outside: Surfaces and Containers’, in Handbook of Material Culture, eds. by Chris Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Mike Rowlands and Patricia Spyer (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc., 2013), pp. 186-96 (p.188).
[2] Kar-wai, Wong, dir., Chungking Express (1994; Hong Kong: Ocean Shores Video, 1994), https://youtu.be/jJ1VQzxwSFo?t=169[Accessed 19 March 2021].
[3] Toshiharu Kasai, ‘A Butoh Dance Method for Psychosomatic Exploration’, Memoirs of the Hokkaido Institute of Technology, 27 (1999), 309-316.
How Connected Can We Be
Moving Images
Duration: 01:03:18, 00:05:38, 00:06:38
2020
HOW CONNECTED CAN WE BE reveals the conflict between the attempts of experiencing complete connection and its effect of destroying it instead, indicated by the action of kissing the face till it get eaten, holding the hand till it melts and hugging the body till it disappears.
Kvesitadze’s sculpture ‘Me&You’ makes me think that the gap between two people cannot be erased regardless the effort of hugging.
Monads
Moving Images
Duration: 01:00, 14:25, 00:47, 00:30, 00:35
2020
MONADS explores the state of self-existence where the parts cannot be connected to become or transform to a whole body, while their increasing amount only adds to the degree of mess or confusion.
The idea of speaking as material continually shifting is influenced by Mary Kelly’s book, Dialogue: On the Politics of Voice. The installation view of projection so that there is no clear physical edge the work can relate to is inspired by Marlene Duma’s book, Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave.
Home
Digital Photographs
2020
HOME tell the conflict of dependant and against in my relationship with my mother or father, showed by the combination of stuffing and nails.
Home is usually thought as a positive existence. Therefore, a distant shot only captures the fluffy feature. Only when people get close can they see the conflicts, revealed by the close-up shots that show the nails. I depend on the floor to stand up while the tensionbetween my foot and nails brings a sense of “against”. The shoes indicate that I have the choice to leave but it takes courage and pain.
The visualisation of the shape of a stuffing room is inspired by the wool house built by Architecture Uncomfortable Workshop (AUW). The supportive side of home is mainly a physical shelter, which I need to sleep in but I cannot sleep comfortably, indicated by my lying and staring at the nails, influenced by Edwina Sandy’s Marriage Bed.
