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Media Files
Abstract
This video work looks into the question as to the fine dividing-line between "game" and "reality". It displays a hen and a cock pecking at a heap of rice grains. A static camera films the activity while at the bottom of the screen a digital display shows both animals "points" and the total number of rice grains eaten so far. Parallel to this, a male and a female voice announce the animals’ scores from off screen.
Yang Zhenzhong enacts what is essentially a trivial situation in the form of a game by subjecting it to a quantified logic of the hen vs. cock competition. The framework of the situation presented by the camera view creates a difference between the "field" and its exterior, thus defining the game as such. However, the two rivals undermine this set-up by leaving the field prematurely – "against the rules" – without having eaten up all the rice grains. The video, however, insists on continuing the given dramaturgy: undeterred, the two off-screen voices carry on counting the remaining grains and adding them to the total score on behalf of the "spoilsports".
(Katrin Mundt)
Artists / Authors
- Yang Zhenzhong
Origination
China, 2000
Submission
, Apr 13, 2004
Category
- artistic production
Keywords
- Topics:
- games |
- audio |
- media art
- Formats:
- video