Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

At the apex of a new solar activity cycle, after an eclipse during the summer solstice, the members of a family transform into a soap, a plastic bag, a simulated plant, and an electric plug — objects from their domestic environment. While the electronic grid is disrupted by the solar storm. The film depicts a series of irregular structures, from digital models to the electronic system: networks, databases, QR codes, planetary matter, cosmic cycles, and artificial environments. It recreates the eclipse of the summer solstice in 2020 and invokes the deadly relationship between solar activity and electronic systems to touch on the uncertainties in both the digital and physical worlds. In the pre-Internet era, an electronic system collapse caused by a massive solar storm had occurred. Such an event could be catastrophic for today’s world, which heavily relies on electronics, and still remains unpredictable. With computer-generated monologues of an imaginary broken machine, the film itself also explores a deductive working method, using the first shot of the animation as a “seed” which gradually develops into the holistic narrative through mind associations, like a generative process. It was shot in the neighborhoods of the Capital Belt of Beijing, where the artist lived during the COVID lockdown, and engages performance of friends, neighbors, and workers. The audience can scan the QR codes in the film to access additional screen spaces, including a short notice, a digital perfume, and a digital watch. Although the virtual world lacks scent, the watch remains static. The English title, ‘Saros,’ refers to a certain period of time used to predict the cycle of eclipses, where the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to similar corresponding positions, so that almost the same eclipses will occur again.

HE Zike (b.1990, Guiyang, China) is an artist who works with mediums including video, writing, performance, prints, and computer program. By incorporating personal memories into her research and fieldwork, HE Zike’s practice illuminates the interplay between time, mundane lives and the technological environment. She weaves the disorder beneath the surface of contemporary life through a narrative approach. She was a finalist for the 5th VH Award of Hyundai Motor Group, and was selected in the residency program of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council in 2023. From 2021, She has co-initiated the interdisciplinary project “Under the Cloud” which visits and studies the technological infrastructure in Southwest China. Her works have been exhibited in Cosmos Cinema, the 14th Shanghai Biennale (2023), Dream Screen at Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul, 2024) and Beijing Biennale (2022) among others.