Asia
Yang Guangnan
Action No. 1
2012
Action No.1
In Action No. 1 Yang Guangnan reflects on the interiority and exteriority of human-technological experience with mechanical gestures that are semi-human and semi-machine. A hanged shirt mounted upon the artist’s machine rhythmically bounces and rotates in a way that suggests a skeletal interior.
Yang Guangnan is a multimedia installation artist. Her work, which embraces sculpture, video and technological devices, investigates daily human experiences and behaviors. Under their casual and spontaneous appearances, her installations address notions of privacy, affects, perception and consciousness in relation to social, economic and political structures. Yang reflects on the codes and rules that determine the shaping of contemporary societies and, inevitably, the life and experience of all individuals. Observing and investigating the mutations of modern Chinese society from a personal perspective and on a cultural and political scale, Yuan Guagnan has produced an acute and critical body of work that questions the nature of one’s agency and resilience. Particularly interested in architecture, urbanism and design, she examines essential and defining notions of influence, style and value and how they define and impact collective experience and memory.