In the Debris

在廢墟｜In the Debris
Supported by Hong Foundation

Multi-channel video installation, 2025

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin.

The inspiration for this work comes from the artist’s long-term collaboration with a scanning team whose tasks include scanning disaster sites and the bodies of victims, assisting in identity reconstruction through digital means. For this exhibition, the artist again collaborated with the team, using 3D scanning and motion capture technology to create several different scenes: children trying to dig another child out from under the rubble, as he repeatedly recites lines from the moment of his death, trapped in a pit of earth and stone; children performing various illusions—hypnosis, levitation, Russian roulette, and fabric-based magic tricks; a group of physically impaired children crawling, contorting their bodies, and tossing sand and stones, pushing the limits of their physicality.

In the exhibition, the models of hands and feet were scanned and cast from the body of a pair of conjoined twin brothers. Before their separation surgery, they shared one leg—both could control it, as if playing tug-of-war. However, during the operation, the leg could not be assigned to either of them and was ultimately discarded. That abandoned leg became a strange vessel of consciousness—a remnant proving that two minds once coexisted within a single body, sharing sensation and will.

The narration in the video is recited from Lo Yi-Chin’s (駱以軍) novel Kuang Chaoren (匡超人), which tells a story of an infinite loop within a single moment of death.

 (Photo by Sean Wang, courtesy of Hong Foundation)