Do not dwell on that hazy glow (2023)

CHEN Xin & ZHANG Wenxin

Metal structure, neon bulbs, stereo, projector, film.

Dimensions variable

Image courtesy of the artist

In the gray room, an old slide projector is automatically playing some blurred images of photographs that gradually form a channel in time. Continuing inside, in the dark room, an electronic tube chandelier modeled after the chandeliers in Eastern European subway stations emits a ruddy glow, like the color of a film darkroom. Only this light keeps flickering like breathing, a current that is passing through the neon gas inside the glass tube, which then expands into a warm sound through the acoustics. Neon comes from the sizzling past of the cosmic nucleosynthesis period, and after a long journey through time, it has been separated and lit up by man from the extremely cold liquid air. Since 1898, from neon lights to particle detection "bubble chambers" to lithography machines, neon has been quietly participating in human history, just as it breathes in and out of our bodies uninterruptedly. Do not Dwell on that Hazy Glow is about the technological, aesthetic and ideological "etching" of neon gas in the form of light, and combines texts on gas and light from ancient scriptures to lead people into a thought about gas.