London-based independent artist and thinker Li-E Chen, is fascinated by art, performance and new media as a way to express independence, openness and incompleteness. Through her practice, she is investigating the meaning of Nothingness.
In September you are going to start the One Year Durational Laboratory on ‘Nothing’. In the invitation we can read:
WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS; WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN I WANT TO MAKE THE KIND OF WORKS THAT NO-ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT I AM DOING
What must we expect from this one-year project? What will the role of the audience be?
There is nothing to expect from this one-year project. The risk that I am taking is to invite myself and others to make works or works of art without any expectation from each other. The role of the audience will be to become the creators of this project. Without the audience, I don’t know how this project could become art. The audience is important to this project, but, at the same time, as a creator and maker, I don’t think about creating the work for the audience. Instead, this will be a challenging task for the creators and their audience.
During the One Year Durational Laboratory on ‘Nothing’ you want ‘to develop and build a machine that has no functions but, as a work of art, expresses Nothing’, you’ll ‘curate social stories about Nothing/Invisible via social media’. And what else do you have in mind?
I plan to launch a new digital platform, which contains a space for a digital archive that people can use to inspire others to copy and re-use and re-create from their original artworks. I have already started testing this out via a 24 hours campaign. The new digital platform aims to serve as a digital archive on ‘nothing’ for further engagement and resources for the public users. I want to create this digital content as (‘performance scores’) and ‘Online Studios’.
The one-year laboratory has been preceded by ‘Cloud Clock Love’ in September 2011. A durational laboratory on ‘nothing’ held at the Siobhan Davies Studios that evolved into the interactive e-book I am your anti-matter, where you and other artists explore a new conception of ‘nothing’. What do you associate now with Nothingness?
At the moment, what I associate with Nothingness – there are theorems, colours, nothing is without an ‘absence’, inventing the future of art and culture, and experimenting with time, structure, life and imagination into this quality of ‘Nothing’.
At the moment you are also campaigning to publicise how free access to cross-disciplinary creative spaces can act as a catalyst to drive the future of art and culture through your ’24 Hours in Dreams’ campaign (28th and 29th June 2012, BAC, London). What is this campaign about?
The campaign is about sharing my dreams about what the future of art and culture can be if art organisations can support the idea of free access to cross-disciplinary spaces by opening one of their spaces to the public for a day in the near future as an experiment.
I sent my letter to organisations in order to have a direct dialogue about this issue.
Are you going to present any other activities, projects, and events in the coming months?
Breakfast-Chat will be launched officially in July. This is an on-going project open to everyone around the world, and I will be distributing around 5000 invitation cards across London and other cities in the UK. To find more information please follow @breakfastchat.
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