“To create a being out of oneself is very serious. I am creating myself. And walking in complete darkness in search of ourselves is what we do.” - Clarice Lispector, Agua Viva
“In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.” - Wallace Stevens, Parts of the world
The following text is written by Xin Liu.
The collection of works on view in Self Devourer at Make Room was conceived during various points of the past two years. A scattering of moments and thoughts as I, along with the world itself, entered an unfamiliar, everything-doing-just-fine mode of being and living. I sensed a hint of repression. Every moment, every tiniest decision, every bit, byte and atom, can cause the most dramatic change. Yet, we glide through life.
All humans share 99.9% of their genetic makeup and are within 50th cousins of each other.
“Am I Asian American to you?” I once asked a friend of mine, a second-generation Asian American himself. “No.” He explained that I was not because I did not share the same kind of upbringing which formed a crucial part of his identity. Then I asked, “How about your mother?” He paused for a few seconds, then looked directly into my eyes and said, “No, I guess she is not.”
When I sequenced my genome in 2019, I was overwhelmed by the amount of data produced from a tiny droplet of saliva: 3,117,275,501 base pairs. How can one decipher something that large?
There comes a point in life where one confronts their own triviality. A common story shared here: students studying abroad till their immigration, marriage and, perhaps, parenthood. I desperately, secretly, hoping to find something special, in the most literal sense, from within myself. Having my DNA tested was thrilling—a revelation of the most forbidden of secrets.
Sometimes I feel myself falling: a drop of water falls into the ocean. The sensation of disappearing gave me a peculiar sense of calmness. I was part of it.
To grasp this idea, I made an accordion book that could extend however long needed while allowing me to meditate in the process of printing, gluing, rubbing, and folding. It ended up being a book of about one thousand pages of the tiniest letters that I could read with bare eyes. The volume and weight of these papers were my access to the spells contained in every cell of mine.
Several years later, when I traveled back to the US after a long trip home, I felt this unshakable disconnect with myself. I struggled to recognize and locate myself among the various identities I am constantly obtaining and losing, and often wondered in my thoughts alone in the studio: an artist, a woman, an engineer, a Chinese immigrant, an Asian American, a daughter…
Being an artist is quite consuming. The artist has an insatiable appetite. I realized I had become this relentless creature consuming herself. I had to cut her open for examination, for reassembly, for display. She is my only material. The only thing that is mine.
That was when I dug out those papers I had made, the extra duplicates from The Book of Mine. Somehow, as I flipped through the pages, those unreadable bytes and bits were no longer confusing. These mysterious letters presented me with an opening: a slate of meaninglessness, of intuition, of plausible translation without understanding. And so I began to sew.
自⻝者
2023.05.25 - 2023.06.24
我在Make Room空间的展览《自食者》中所展示的作品系列, 来自于过去两年许多零散的时刻。我和世界本身共同进入了一个陌生的、“一切都很好”的生活状态。但我知道,在这样压抑的空间里,每个微小的决定,每一比特、字节与原子都可以引起最剧烈的变化。
Yet, we glide through life.
所有人类都共享着99.9%的基因组成,都是彼此间50代以内的表亲。
“对你来说,我是亚裔美国人吗?” 我曾问过我的一位朋友,他自己是二代亚裔美国人。“不是。” 他解释道,我不是,因为我没有与他相似的成长背景,而这是组成他身份的重要部分之一。随后我问:“那你的母亲呢?” 他停顿了几秒,然后直视我的眼睛并说:“不,我想她不是。”
当我在2019年对我的基因组进行测序时,我被从一滴唾液产生的大量数据所震撼:3,117,275,501个碱基对。一个人要如何解读如此庞大的数据?
生命中总会有一个时刻,人需要面对自己的微不足道。
一个常见的故事:出国留学直到移民、结婚,也许还会为人父母。我渴望着从自己内心找到一些特别的东西,近乎直接粗暴检测基因是令人兴奋的——这是对最禁忌的秘密的揭示。
但结果平平无奇。
有时候,我感到自己在坠落:一滴水落入海洋。消失的感觉给我一种奇特的宁静感。我是它的一部分。
为了更好地理解这种感觉,我制作了一本手风琴式的书。这本书可以随着需要而延长,同时也让我在印刷、粘贴、摩擦和折叠的过程中有时间反思。这最终变成了一本有一千页的书,其中的字母是我肉眼能够识别的最小字母。这些纸的厚度和重量是我接触我每个细胞中包含的密码的方式。
几年后,当我在一次漫长的回家之旅后回到美国,我感受到了我与自我之间不可动摇的分离感,我在不断获取和失去的各种身份中努力找寻和定位自我。我经常独自在工作室中游走,思绪万千:我是一名艺术家,一个女性,一个工程师,一个华裔移民,一个亚裔美国人,一个女儿.....
成为一名艺术家真的很劳累。艺术家总是有一种永不满足的渴望。我意识到我已经变成了这样的一个生物,她不停地消耗着自己。我必须剖析她,重新审视,重新组合,并将她展示出来。她是我唯一的素材,也是我唯一的所有。
就在这时,我找出了我制作的那些纸张,那些从我书中多余出来的副本。不知为何,当我翻阅这些页面时,那些不可读的字节和比特突然变得不再令我困惑。这些神秘的信件给了我一个开始:一堆没有意义的、直觉的、没有理解的模糊翻译。然后,我开始缝纫。
——刘昕,2023年五月