Yizhen Lyu

The title is from a Chinese character Jian(間), which could translate as separate, in… between, among, and space in English. Jian(間）contains a door（門) character and a sun（日）character in the centre. The meaning of this symbol as opening the door to see the sun. It implies space and time and an invisible connection between the tangible and intangible spaces. 

This work is a visual representation of my mental state during the training of Vipassana meditation. Many of the visual elements are metaphorical. It includes documented videos, hand-drawn animation, computer-generated images, and various filter techniques to create a multi-sensory experience.

The idea of the video work start from a series experiments on the idea of wound and scars. Wounds and scars are a gateway between the physical body and the outside world. The skin is the most direct display of the body. The wounds and their painful sensations also shape and limit our bodies and movements' range and performance.

Gradually I begin to investigate / create analogies for skin and the screens surface. Transforming and interconnecting spaces, by using physical materials and digitized images and objects.

Emptiness is one of the essential concepts in many eastern philosophy theories, especially in Buddhism and Taoism. The emptiness in Buddhism is known as the Sanskrit term Sunyata (空/空性). Which means the empty of independent existence, and it also had to describe the true nature of all phenomena. It is not seen as a negation of existence but as the undifferentiated arising from all apparent entities, distinctions, and dualities. A famous line extract from the Heart Sutra is "emptiness is form, form is emptiness." Which points out we would not perceive truth through our preconceptions and judgements. 

Taoism used to illustrate the original and noumenal energy of the universe arises from nothing（無) and nothing（無） implies endless possible changes.  The ultimate source is indefinable and empty, which is the main idea in Tao Te Ching. The original text goes: "All beings in the world are born existence; existence is born in nonexistence." 

I took a photo in the darkness and then adjusted the parameters. For this project I was trying to explore "what is in the dark? Or in other words, what is the essence of darkness?" After repeating the same process hundreds of times, the image becomes gradually glitched and automatically forms its shape and colour pattern, and eventually, it becomes total blank.

Black and white are two colours that will indicate and represent void and emptiness, because under extreme darkness or intense light we will lose our sense of view. In this process, the reality transforms into a flat surface. The phone adds another layer of visualisation to it, which reforms and transcends its original characteristics. 

This longer piece includes several transformed materials to create layers of perspectives and depth based on one of the original experiments. The transitional bubble clips take the representational idea of bubbles to emphasis the metaphor for illusion, impermanence and fragmentation. 

The sound of dripping water is to match the bubble clips. The audio with its echo can provide a new observation of space. I was slowing down the audio to imitate the image digitization process that digitized the sound so that the hidden noise becomes noticeable.

"Do you know you are breathing?"

"Are you aware that you know you are breathing?"

These are two critical questions for me to understand a "knowing mind" and "awareness mind" when practicing meditation. By asking these questions, one could immediately start to turn their attention inwardly about their inner selves. 

Unlike the general situation where people try to construct virtual reality based on the physical elements and existence, I try to simulate perception by using the real circumstance generating the visual imagination after the five senses no longer diffuse and expand outward.