Commerce des Esprits, 2018

Hong Kong 2019
Commerce des Esprits

MadeIn Gallery

Video/Film
Four-channel video installation
Edition of 6
165.0 x 500.0 x 500.0 (厘米)
65.0 x 196.9 x 196.9 (吋)
“Commerce des Esprits” is a four channel video installation presenting a scripted monologue through animation and text. Based on the research of works by French sinologists on Zhuangzi (370 BC-287 BC), Shen Xin translates the perspectives and productivities of comparative philosophy into an event which narrates an unconscious state. The narrative initiates an imagined experiment of autonomous driving, where questions of ethics in technology, safety and death are provoked. Two animation channels traces human bodies through motion capture, while the two text channels reveal in English and French the commerce of language, and its potential for new ways of producing meaning, and for undermining cultural autonomy of the nation state.