DINGZIHU - Video and Sound installation.

 

Dingzihu is the name of the video and sound installation's name, resulting from the collaboration between AI DŌ PROJECT and Eva Borner. The installation shows a series of images in a devastated environment in Shanghai, China.

 

The installation is presented as an exercise that aims to reflect the values​​, hopelessness, suffering and life purposes in an attempt to question or make us doubt our ideals.

 

The images projected on the screens refer to the thoughts of Victor Frankl (Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, a concentration camp survivor during World War II, and founder of Logotherapy) as well as to all those people who refuse to leave and be evicted from their homes by urban-speculation; destruction of the historical past through the demolition of old residential complexes and the construction of new and modern urban settings, primarily designed for the newly rich.

 

The title Dingzihu is a Chinese word that could be translated as 'nail house'. It corresponds to those buildings still standing as a nail attached to land in the middle of an already modernised or an environment of ongoing modernisation.

 

The setting shown on the screens belongs to an area under reconstruction in Shanghai, one of the largest cities in the world. The city is representative of economic growth and the rapid evolution of Asian countries, which is becoming a benchmark for the rest of the world.

 

What once was a world power against one will probably soon be. One of the representative conflicts from that former power against the most urgent problem of modernisation. Two conflicts, two eras, two worlds... but one same image. Unfortunately, war remains a representative image of today's world. 

 

Thus, and using an everyday aesthetic to both conflicts, the installation metaphorically aims to create a bridge between these two historical events while making us reflect on our ideals.