Guan Xiao

Action, 2014

For the Chinese artist Guan Xiao, the connection is rhythm, a kind of reduced drum sound that continually accompanies the video’s flow of images: »For me rhythm means all the intersections of sense. It’s a way I understand the associations of things. It helps me to try and transfer action, see, listen, think about interactions and freely build a link between them.« (G.X.). In Action, 2014, Guan Xiao takes the form of a 3-channel projection, with differing image sequences appearing on the left and the right channel. On the central screen, textual fragments are superimposed: »Action brings us together / We are the actors / … / Everything meets constantly / in the frequency of the universe / Resonate together / … / Make your own rhythms with action / Action, the key to transformation (…).« These texts, which are intended to agitate, make our actions themselves the center of interest. After all, “when you find your position and make your own relevance, your world will start running.” (G.X.) Guan Xiao makes use of these opportunities for self-empowerment, for reinforcing the “I” through art, in the creation of her artworks: she deconstructs the objects, separating them from their existing contexts, and recombines them – according to her own parameters – to create a kind of ‘video atlas’ à la Aby Warburg.