I cannot see you, but I know you are here.

你相信鬼魂吗？在中国，大部分老一辈的人们总是对鬼魂相当避讳，认为这是不吉利的象征。而年轻一辈的人往往对于各式各样的灵异事件十分感兴趣。恐怖电影、恐怖小说也在年轻人群中相当流行。当然，我相信不同的人对鬼魂的态度和观念都是不同的。对于恐怖电影或是小说，我其实是害怕的，我并不想将鬼魂当作一件令人感到恐怖的事物来对待。我相信每个人都有自己特有的灵魂环绕着自己。这种灵魂，并不是那些恐怖电影里的鬼怪，而是一种灵气，一种精神。科学家们也已经发现了成千上万的人有过濒死体验，虽至今仍对这一现象的解释有不同的观点，但对于这一现象似乎已经是毋庸置疑的了。

每个人的心里都有自己的一个小小世界。当一个人安静做着什么事情的时候，他的思维世界依旧是丰富多彩的。这样的思维，就好像有另外一个人在你身边做着和你此刻做的完全不一样的事情，你知道他就在这里，但大家都看不见他。就像面具，每个人在日常生活都会戴上不一样的面具去处理对待不同的人事物，这样的面具只是保护我们的一种方式。其实这样的灵魂一直都在我们身边，他们也许正做着我们想做却没有做的事，也许在保护着我们，也许代表着我门真实的内心世界。

Do you believe in ghost? In China, most old people avoid talking about the ghosts. They think ghosts as symbol of unlucky things. On the other side, the young people are always interested in different kinds of supernatural cases. The horror movies and novels are popular among the young people. I think that different people have different attitudes and concepts about the ghosts. In fact, I am afraid of watching the horror movies or novels. I do not want to treat the ghosts as one thing that makes people feel scared. I believe that everyone has the special ghosts being around themselves. These ghosts are not the ghosts and monsters in the horror movies, they are more like aura and spirit. The scientists have already found that thousands people have near death experiences. Although there are various explanations of this experience, there is no doubt that the near death experience is a fact.

What I want to express is everyone has different small worlds in their mind. Their thoughts are still plentiful when they are quiet to do something. It seems like that there is someone who is beside you and doing totally different things from what you are doing right now. You know that there he or she is, but people cannot see him or her. As a matter of fact, people wear different masks to deal with different stuff. These masks do not real exist but they are some ways that can protect us in the daily life. I believe this kind of ghosts is always being with us. Maybe they are doing the things what we want to do but not, they are protecting us. Perhaps these ghosts are our real inner world.

Tall Ships by Gary Hill

Drawing back a curtain, the viewer enters a dark place. As the eyes accustom themselves to the darkness, the space turns out to be a long corridor, illuminated only by black-and-white images along its sides, and by a single image at its end. They are people, seen first in the distance, then advancing until they are life-size. And through they are all different men, women, younger and older people, finally, on the end wall on her own, a young child - they behave the same, approaching us curiously, as if we, not they, were the object of attention. The space itself is like a long gallery, and like a gallery, it allows us to be inquisitive. It is hard not to be; the images are easy to relate to. Perhaps this explains their apparent interest in us, of as moving portraits, they patrol a similar territory to our own, a fairly deep space where they approach and withdraw, examining us in every detail, taking time to reach conclusions or to satisfy their interests. For they want something, as they approach and confront us. And although we never realise what it is, by the end of their enquiry, their curiosity seems to be satisfied. Only as we move on, we feel as if we have got everything out of them that we might. And when, on occasion, they turn their backs and walk away, it is difficult not to feel rejected. What we sense, without pushing it to the forefront of our minds, is that they are responding to what we are doing. These people have something to do with us.

So distance, both literal and psychological, plays a major part in Gary Hill's 'Tall Ships', a work which depends on the fallacy that two-dimensional pictures can suddenly come to life.

- 'Missing Person' by Stuart Morgan

What is the real distance?

 

 

Crits: AMBIGUITY

 

 

 

What can influence a space being ghosting or spectral?

What can be the hidden elements in the space?

How to create some unexpected objects in the space?

Is everything exactly same as what you see?

How to create a ghosting space by using different spatial sequence?

My original idea is about the relationship between old and new elements in the space. I consider that the space likes a stage that can perform any possibilities of different combination with old and new elements. I want to keep the original idea of combining old and new elements, and beside that, I also want to create an optical illusion space, which is transformed in 2D and 3D, by using the old and new.

The keyword of my models is ambiguity. The ambiguity of location in these models means when you are standing at a specific angle, you cannot make sure the real distance between two objects in the space. Different angles can see different combination of shapes and shadow in the models. What I am experimenting now is trying to use the occlusion shapes to combine different ways of the changeable location of objects. The relationship between the occlusion shapes can transform in 2D and 3D. What’s more, blurring the surface of models can help to create the uncertainty of the objects’ location. Immaterial blur is one of the most important concepts in my model-making process. Not only the actual blurred material works, the openings on the models also work. The uncertainty spatial sequence can make people be curious about what exactly in the space. In addition, I want to create some unexpected objects that can be seen as the hidden elements in the space, by combining the new with old elements, which will reveal to people in unexpected way. In this way, the ghosting atmosphere in the space will be strengthened.

Alex Hartley

 

In fact this is a massive light box, in which carefully lit interior constructions and photographic panels give the illusion of rooms, steps, corridors and structures. Encased in a giant wedge shaped frame of etched glass that inhibits our view Hartley has created a disorientating fictional space which both perplexes and seduces the viewer.