Lu Yang
25 Mar - 01 May 2011
LU YANG
Paralysis Agitans Project
25 March - 1 May, 2011
Boers-Li Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of work by Shanghai artist Lu Yang entitled “Paralysis Agitans Project” in its Gallery II space on 24 March 2011 and continuing through 1 May. This exhibition presents new work by the artist, including video installation, digital prints, music video, and documentary materials related to the project.
The core impetus of the “Paralysis Agitans Project” originates with Lu Yang’s research into Parkinson’s disease. As a degenerative disease of the central nervous system, the primary symptoms of Parkinson’s include muscular rigidity, tremors, bradykinesia, and even loss of motor ability. The greatest difficult sufferers face is hindered movement, no longer able to control movements with thought at will. Currently, the most effective mode of treatment is deep brain stimulation (DBS), a mature surgical treatment for the loss of self-control and bodily tremors that characterize Parkinson’s disease. The surgery is able to help the sufferer get rid of the difficulties of tremors, but, on the other hand, it is also able to control the behavior of the patient
The “Paralysis Agitans Project” is an investigation of the contradictory relationship between Parkinson’s disease and its treatments, including both, on the one hand, diagrams and animations the artist has produced to introduce the disease and these treatments and, on the other hand, samples of the frequencies of tremors associated with Parkinson’s--all synthesized in an electronic music clip. Through this visual exposition of opposition, the artist interprets the contradictory relationships of control and being controlled, loss of control and restorative treatment. By synthesizing the pathological transformation of the human body with electronic rhythms Lu Yang places us within a space filled with electronic pleasure and moral crime, thus reflecting the ethical conundrums of technological society.
The “Paralysis Agitans Project” remains directly related to Lu Yang’s past work, including “Project of Seeking Cooperation with Scientific Trams” and “Project of Beats from Living Things.” From the former this new project draws its methods of display in the form of precise scientific evidence and diagrams, while from the latter it borrows the visual style of the music video in order to present the bodily rhythms of a living thing that has lost self-control. At the core, all of these projects are concerned with control and its ethical contradictions.
Lu Yang was born in 1984 in Shanghai, and graduated from the new media department of the China Academy of Art in 2010. She currently lives and works in Shanghai. Recent exhibitions of note include “In a Perfect World...” at the Meulensteen Gallery in New York and “Young Media Artists: China, Japan, and Korea” at Tomorrow City for the Incheon International Digital Art Festival.
Paralysis Agitans Project
25 March - 1 May, 2011
Boers-Li Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of work by Shanghai artist Lu Yang entitled “Paralysis Agitans Project” in its Gallery II space on 24 March 2011 and continuing through 1 May. This exhibition presents new work by the artist, including video installation, digital prints, music video, and documentary materials related to the project.
The core impetus of the “Paralysis Agitans Project” originates with Lu Yang’s research into Parkinson’s disease. As a degenerative disease of the central nervous system, the primary symptoms of Parkinson’s include muscular rigidity, tremors, bradykinesia, and even loss of motor ability. The greatest difficult sufferers face is hindered movement, no longer able to control movements with thought at will. Currently, the most effective mode of treatment is deep brain stimulation (DBS), a mature surgical treatment for the loss of self-control and bodily tremors that characterize Parkinson’s disease. The surgery is able to help the sufferer get rid of the difficulties of tremors, but, on the other hand, it is also able to control the behavior of the patient
The “Paralysis Agitans Project” is an investigation of the contradictory relationship between Parkinson’s disease and its treatments, including both, on the one hand, diagrams and animations the artist has produced to introduce the disease and these treatments and, on the other hand, samples of the frequencies of tremors associated with Parkinson’s--all synthesized in an electronic music clip. Through this visual exposition of opposition, the artist interprets the contradictory relationships of control and being controlled, loss of control and restorative treatment. By synthesizing the pathological transformation of the human body with electronic rhythms Lu Yang places us within a space filled with electronic pleasure and moral crime, thus reflecting the ethical conundrums of technological society.
The “Paralysis Agitans Project” remains directly related to Lu Yang’s past work, including “Project of Seeking Cooperation with Scientific Trams” and “Project of Beats from Living Things.” From the former this new project draws its methods of display in the form of precise scientific evidence and diagrams, while from the latter it borrows the visual style of the music video in order to present the bodily rhythms of a living thing that has lost self-control. At the core, all of these projects are concerned with control and its ethical contradictions.
Lu Yang was born in 1984 in Shanghai, and graduated from the new media department of the China Academy of Art in 2010. She currently lives and works in Shanghai. Recent exhibitions of note include “In a Perfect World...” at the Meulensteen Gallery in New York and “Young Media Artists: China, Japan, and Korea” at Tomorrow City for the Incheon International Digital Art Festival.