As a society, we’ve made it so you don’t need to leave the house to learn. You don’t need to actually be in another place to see it, or breathe in the air to experience an environment. And while this sort of habit is not suggested, it definitely is an interesting notion for the future of technology.
Presenting: Yuge Zhou, an artist whose perspective and innovations in video and installation work sets her apart from the rest.
Zhou, who was born in China, seems to be a native of each city she captures. As a photographer, video and installation artist, Zhou shows a surreal, almost mind-bending visual of time, place, and people. Her ‘visual poetry’ and urban documentation start with small recordings of inhabitants in their city. Her video installations are collages of the aforementioned, which are then projected onto relief sculptures.
There is an omniscient presence in Zhou’s work that may be due to the capturing and creating of an environment. Her installations not only evoke a matchless serenity in their minute, delicate movements, but it feels as if you are handed a small world. You can hold it in your hand and observe the uncanny yet quotidian experiences of the people living in it.
Zhou explores the psychological qualities of public spaces through her lens in her collage series, “The Humors,” which includes the piece Midtown Flutter.
“Social synchronization is a phenomenon where individuals within a group influence one another’s behavioral patterns. For Midtown Flutter, I shot a variety of architecture in midtown Manhattan, allowing passersby to interrupt the scene. By selecting and then composing the video footage according to the formal qualities of the architecture within the scene, the architecture in turn dictates the patterns and flow of the pedestrians. Midtown becomes a flattened, uniform construct for this play of texture, rhythm and interruptions.”
An extremely active artist, Zhou has been part of a lengthy list of solo and group exhibitions all over the world. In the last few months, she has exhibited at the Elmhurst Art Museum, Chicago Cultural Center, Microscope Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center. Midtown Flutter is currently exhibiting at the Grand Rapids Art Museum as a part of ArtPrize Nine. You can check out more of her work by visiting her website.