Arles 2017 – Silin Liu, I’m everywhere – The Eye of Photography

The film Lucy conveys the following truth: once a person’s intelligence develops beyond 100%, the body, which serves as the intelligence-bearing vehicle, will turn to ashes. The descriptive capacity of “I am everywhere” surmounts temporal and geographic constraints, and at this point, a person transforms into a “god”. When material media can no longer bear the energy of information, the form of the medium will similarly dissipate. In this way, the image is chock full of “everywhere”—it has immense energy, but is also hugely false; it is the end but also the origin. Every time we take a photograph and share it, it is like a ritual ceremony. We are lost in this irrational worship, meanwhile emitting an entirely new version of ourselves, or, say we are releasing our pent-up selves; such a process expels the fear and helplessness of the environment, and the original but disordered environment might also gives us the freedom and opportunity to reselect our fate.