Kaihui Zhang     August 2019

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The birth of digital technology forms new vocabulary in the art world and provide new ways to express memory in this era. We perceive the world and receive a majority of information through a digital screen, we form memory through the digital screen, it becomes an inseparable part of our life. This existence between physical and virtual space creates new aesthetics, and opens a fresh way to see this world.

 

The key idea of my current studio practice is to address the connection between the physical and virtual world. The artwork records my memories for the events that happened during 2019. I try to link the pixelized, low-resolution digital image to my memory, and to express my experience of how virtual space engage to my life, and becomes part of my real life. These low-definition images resemble my faded memories. As time goes by, these memories become pieces of fragments, that the impression remains but the details disappear.

 

I use graph paper because it is casual, so that artworks truly represent my most ordinary life. Graph paper shares similar features to the Memory LCD Technology (Memory in Pixel Displays), which every pixel on the screen store a piece of data, and altogether present a lively image. In my work, every tiny square on the graph paper are drawn with a piece of colour, which formed an image together.

 

It brings an impression of believing that my work is a printed product at first sight. The realisation of the work being actually handmade creates a dynamic between the viewer and the work, but more importantly, demonstrates the subtle similarity between virtual and physical.