Racing Thoughts — WA LIU 刘娃

Racing Thoughts
2019
Two-channel video installation
7 min 28 sec

The work traces the artist’s discursive Internet surfing by juxtaposing both clinical and humanistic approaches to human emotions. On the right channel, a brainwave headset objectively monitors her real-time emotional changes. On the left channel, hand-drawn animations illustrate her subjective thoughts and imagination with a human touch. As she scrolls through the endless webpages, the Internet also brings unexpected discoveries back into the real world, which range from data privacy in neurotechnology to mental health issues among students, from air pollution in China to its nuclear industry during the Cold War. In the end, this virtual journey on the Internet leads to her on-site field research at China’s first military nuclear base “404.”

看最后会到哪
2019
双频影像装置
7分28秒

影像以艺术家随机的网络浏览为线索，从医学和人文的双重视角探究人的情绪。右屏中，脑机接口客观地量化分析她实时的情绪变化。左屏中，手绘动画勾勒出她主观的思考与想象。她不断地点击新的网页，任凭互联网将其目光引向意想不到的议题，从科技带来的信息安全隐患，到学生的心理健康问题，从中国的空气污染，到冷战时期的核工业发展。最终，这段虚拟的线上之旅逐渐延伸为她在中国第一座军事核基地“404”的实地田野调查。