42
Wang Gongxin
Book Dream
2010
single-channel video displayed as screen saver
Wang Gongxin’s practice centres on a sculptural and conceptual approach to video, video
installation and sometimes photography. The artist often integrates three-dimensional
objects with projection or monitors in his extensive use of mixed media with ambitious and
technically precise installations.
When invited to participate in the
Light from Light
project, Wang Gongxin considered the
everyday use of monitors within the library and focused in on the multitude of
public access computers that are used to explore the library’s databases of books and other
research media.
Book Dream
infiltrates the existing hardware systems of the library in a
surrealist gesture created by the installation of dislocated imagery and sound into the
standard computer interface. The three-part video shows a sequence of Chinese books that
are rhythmically animated to jiggle-zoom-and-fade in and out, all the while accompanied by
the odd and comical sound of snoring. The looping video sequence replaces the screen saver
mode of the computer, so whenever the computer lies dormant the ‘dream’
commences. Conversely when the computer is accessed to search for a book, the Book
Dream imagery abruptly disappears reverting back into the library’s very practical reality.
This work was intended to seamlessly integrate into the library and was assumed to be the
simplest work to deploy. Ironically, the work met with the most resistance and was in fact
the most technically difficult to achieve. The public access computers in each location are
by design a most basic computer system that is extremely challenging to augment with any
additional software. Language complications compounded IT complications.
Librarians found the computers’ digital snoring difficult to accept, while it was also
reported that playful library patrons would covertly increase the volume. Wang’s
intervention inadvertently intruded to cause great friction in a very sensitive zone between
inherent library conventions and creative innovations that contemporary libraries strive for.
