Since the arrival of smartphones, social media and augmented reality, it feels as if the future has been gathering momentum. In his exhibition at Isabella Bortolozzi in Berlin, Chinese-American performance artist and filmmaker, Wu Tsang, envisions a future where colours and characters are vibrant and neon, yet a dark critique on contemporary society emerges.
‘His Masters Voice’ (2014), a sculptural-costume worn for a site-specific performance on the opening night by boychild, is now bunched and suspended from the ceiling above a strip of mirrored floor. Swarovski crystals glitter and cables of neon LED lights flash and sprawl like an electric octopus. The room in which it hangs is a former office lined with compartmented wooden panels and mirrors. Reflections of the dystopian creature are thrown across the space, flickering in the mirrors like a worn out film reel.
Wandering down the corridor towards a heavy bass sound, darkness ensues. ‘A Day in the Life of Bliss’ lights up the room at intervals long enough to locate and sink into a dense beanbag. The two channel video is faced at angles by two disorientating mirrors. In collaboration with Californian performance artist, boychild, ‘A Day in the Life of Bliss’ (2014) follows the story of BLIS, a celebrity in a futuristic culture where social media profiles have become alternative selves. The “LOOKS” talk together in speech bubbles of distilled language. Concerned only by their appearance, they take selfies with fans, dress up in experimental costumes and perform at a club in the last scene. Wu elevates social media beyond possibility, but it’s easy to see how close we have become to this “selfie state” – a narcissistic world where our “best” (and least) human selves are only recognisable in these filtered and photoshopped projections of the self.
Like boychild and Wu, the characters in ‘A Day in the Life of Bliss’ are part of an outsider culture Wu has previously explored in his film ‘Wildness’ (2012). Shown at the 2012 Whitney Biennial along with major museums such as MOCA Los Angeles, MOMA New York and Tate Modern London, the film is a portrait of stories surrounding the community of The Silver Platter, a night-club popular with LGBTQ Latin Americans in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles. After hosting and performing there himself, Wu became fascinated by the personalities drawn to The Silver Platter and documented the lives of these complex individuals. In this way, the documentary also became an introspective journey into his own identity exploring notions of gender, home and nationality.
In the furthest room of the exhibition, photographs show stills of boychild and Wu caught in performative moments. The figures surrounded by black darkness are lit centrally by a spotlight in a theatrical mode where expressions are exaggerated and stretched, bodies are exposed, pale and bound with string. Wu installs power back to the body where the red blooded capabilities of a gripped hand, an arched back or a craning neck display a nuanced language.
In his continued quest to uncover multiple meanings and identities, Wu Tsang shows how expressions of the self can become polarised between the internal and external selves, which in contemporary terms often translates to the virtual and the real.
