Wu Tsang
Wu Tsang, A day in the life of bliss ,2014. Two channel video, colour, sound, 20 min. Courtesy Sammlung Haus N, Kiel, Germany.
For this exhibition, Tsang presents A day in the life of bliss, an immersive film that explores the darker implications of our current-day surveillance society through performance art. The story follows BLIS (played by American performance artist boychild), a young performer who lives in a world where an artificial intelligence called the LOOKS and control humans through a panoptical social media platform known as PRSM ("prism").
The Looks evolved from present-day algorithm-based metadata systems; they track all exchanges between people and consequently control public space. Society has grown dependent on the Looks, but there is a growing resistance. Blis is a pop star by day and underground performer by night. As the Looks cultivate a celebrity-obsessed culture to feed their frequencies, stardom begins to corrupt Blis, overtaking her capacity to absorb it all. Blis is one of a minority of humans born with two hearts, who has the innate capacity to undermine the Looks regime - but she must first accept herself in order to realise her potential.
Wu Tsang, A day in the life of bliss ,2014. Two channel video, colour, sound, 20 min. Courtesy Sammlung Haus N, Kiel, Germany.
Wu Tsang (born 1982, Massachusetts, USA. Based in Los Angeles, USA.) Graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include Not in my language, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; A day in the life of bliss, Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin; Moved by the Motion, Diverse Works, Houston, 2014; Re:New/Re:Play, Residency and Public Program, New Museum, New York, 2011. Other group exhibitions include Real Humans, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 2015; Don't You Know Who I am? Art After Identity Politics, MuHKA, Antwerp;The Shape of a Right Statement – Cynthia Maughan with Ben Kinmont and Wu Tsang, Cubitt Artists, London, 2014 ; Blues for Smoke, Whitney Museum, New York, 2013;Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea, 2012; The Whitney Biennial, New York, 2010.
Wu Tsang, A day in the life of bliss ,2014. Two channel video, colour, sound, 20 min. Courtesy Sammlung Haus N, Kiel, Germany.