The Wish

In my creation of the video artwork "The Wishes", which combines real-life footage with AI-generated art, I demonstrate the current Z-generation's questioning and contemplation of the three-dimensional spaces of the past, present, and future. I strive to break the boundaries of time and space, allowing for a freer use of various visual languages and techniques to create a narrative style and visual effects that are uniquely personal.

The work does not have a coherent story thread; everything unfolds in a fragmented sequence of images initiated by the question, "What is your birthday wish?" The text in the work also lacks strong logical and causal connections, posing questions directly to the audience outside the screen as if by instinct.

The work connects and contrasts "personal wishes" and "societal expectations" as key themes to link two narrative spaces. One is the real-life scene with a 1990s sepia-toned film style: I am either holding a toy candle and bowing under a chimney, or sitting cross-legged in an abandoned factory, holding a toy cake and looking straight ahead. The other is a scene imagined with artificial intelligence algorithms depicting apocalyptic disasters and cosmic technology, filled with a retro-futuristic style.

The video installation piece "The Wishes – Take a Seat" consists of an inflatable mold shaped like a sofa, several toys, wooden pieces, photographs, and a display screen. During the conceptualization of "Take a Seat," I first determined that the work needed an object that could be viewed from multiple angles in reality. What immediately came to mind was my childhood memory of the "Inflatable Kingdom" — a type of inflatable model children's playground, some of which are built like castles where children can sit and play inside. The longing for the lively amusement park in my childhood, and the attachment to the company of my grandparents, have given me a special affection for many brightly colored plastic items.

The material choice for "The Wishes – Take a Seat" is based on such emotions and memories, transforming the everyday piece of furniture — a sofa — into an inflatable transparent mold, symbolizing a vivid, dreamlike absence and extraction of memory into a vacuum, as if inviting the audience to sit down. At the same time, the display screen on the sofa plays a "dreamcore" style dynamic video, signifying the passage of time in memory.