His life and his art are viscerally linked to freedom of expression. In 2005, his workshop in Beijing was destroyed, a year later an exhibition banned, and Liu Bolin was born on January 7, the anniversary of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Famous for his photos where he “hides” in the image, the Chinese artist, who lives and works in Beijing, has created a digital work for the first time, presented from June 23 to 25 at the “Augmented Palace”, the major event for artistic creations in augmented reality at the Grand Palais Éphémère in Paris.
RFI : You present here a digital work, The Tightrope Walker, an immersive tightrope walker that is born in the application on spectators’ smartphones. Why can we also see a blue sculpture, a real physical plastic, under the dome of the Grand Palais Éphémère ?
Liu Bolin : I started with digital works during confinement. For example, on iPad, I painted virtually. From that moment, I started this project. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been drastic changes. I too wanted to make a very important change. And this work is a starting point. During confinement, I sought a relationship with myself, a dialogue. I found it digitally. In this sculpture, there are three dimensions which represent the past, the present and the future. Three in one. This series is around a man on a wire. The goal of this series is to focus on the present, with every step we take. That’s the thinking behind this digital series.
The digital work is called Tightrope Walker. This man who walks on a tightrope, is it you ?
It’s not just me. It’s each of us. Above all, it represents each individual’s connection to the world. It’s like a drop of water compared to the sea. There is an energy. And this drop of water reflects the energy of the sea.
You became famous as Hiding Man, “ the invisible Man » who resists by hiding. In the works of your series Hiding in the City, you adapt the visual code of your environment to such an extent that you literally disappear into the picture. In these photographs, there is always a single person, who does not move and becomes almost invisible. In your digital installation several people appear, they move, and are not invisible, but rather spectacular. With The Tightrope Walkerdo we discover a new Liu Bolin ?
After the Covid-19 pandemic, society has changed. We find ourselves today in the post-Covid period, it is another human level. The sculpture we see today started in 2018. At the time, I scanned my own body, my forms, for a hundred minutes. At that time, I was able to start this series of 3D sculptures. When I started, I didn’t think about these current works. At the time, the idea was : how to combine time and space in a single work. After the pandemic, for me, it was important to find a balance between the body and the spirituality. As the title says, The Tightrope Walker (“ The man on the wire “), we must focus on the present moment. In a spiritual sense, this is what makes our life immortal.
Your first personal exhibition was in 2005, in Paris. Since then, everything has changed. Today, social networks like Facebook or TikTok suck up all our information and control all our movements. What does it change for your artistic concept to hide in your works ?
my series Hiding in the City evolves over time. Like technologies and everyday life. It evolves at the same time. For example, in 2013 I started Target. For this series, I invited a lot of other people who camouflage themselves together. So it’s not just one person. The maximum was 80 people who collaborated. In 2015 I started another series, hacker art. I have “ hacked ” sites [comme l’Assemblée nationale en 2015, NDLR], I camouflaged myself in my image and put the photo back on the relevant site. Series Hiding in the City evolves with daily life and the problems that come with it. I am an artist, and an artist is interested in the problems that humanity encounters. I offer an observation. That’s my role as an artist.
What does it mean today to hide, to camouflage oneself in a virtual world, in a digital sculpture, in a digital concept ?
For me, before, the idea of hiding was something immobile. In a digital version, it moves. The idea of hiding is changing.
You were born in January 1973 in Shandong Province, China, you are 50 years old. With the climate crisis and artificial intelligence, how do you imagine the world you’ll be hiding in 50 years from now? ?
Predicting what the future would look like in 50 years is not possible, it is far too far. Like, 50 years ago, it was hard to predict today’s world. I can reflect on what will be in ten years. But technology is changing so fast, for example artificial intelligence (AI) replacing a lot of human indulgences. This means that we have to reflect on the purpose of our existence. For me, this is an essential question.
Do you think there will be a man on the line », a digital person, an artificial character, who will live and hide in your place in the world of tomorrow ?
The fact that this man on the wire lives digitally is not the main point. In such a work, what is essential is the moment when the spectator sees the work and when he sees his own life in the present moment, each in his own way. As an artist, I ask the question, I launch the debate. Whether it is a digital person, there is not the essential.
In your new work, what has changed regarding your relationship with the viewers? ?
I haven’t yet really grasped what has changed with a digital work in this relationship with the public. For me, art means transmitting a message, a kind of allegory. In the Middle Ages, for example, a glass was represented to signify that life is fragile. Today, the question is posed differently, and I use new technologies to convey the message. The message has not changed, but the technology has evolved.
[Merci à Clara Yu pour la traduction]
► The Tightrope Walker by Liu Bolin at the Augmented Palace Festival 3, from June 23 to 25 at the Grand Palais Ephémère in Paris. The other artists exhibited: Lu Yang (born in 1984, Japan), Salomé Chatriot (born in 1995, France) Tobias Gremmler (born in 1970).
Chinese artist Liu Bolin at the “Augmented Palace”: “The idea of hiding is evolving”