Molecular Mischief: Rat Becomes Me Becomes a Core With Many Trails Becomes a Fungal Parody Becomes Figuratively Bioluminescent Becomes Metallic Tasting Becomes Vulgar Becomes a Baby Crone Becomes Fecund and Positively Glowing Becomes Treacherous as the Sea but Inclusive…
TITLED, Copenhagen, 2024
Photos: Nemanja Askov
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This laser installation explores the possible energy exchanges taking place between the public and enclosed spaces of her surroundings with the rat as her opportunistic starting point.
The laser’s bright blasts onto glow-in-the dark fabric creates a space in which the physical and metaphorical realm intersect. The hand-drawn motifs of visceral beings whose mutually erroneous lines entangle on top of each other interlocking them through the glow-in-the-dark fabric’s afterglow: A sort of exquisite corpse-like Rat King, their vitality fades as the fabric discharges.
Meng’s keen focus on semantic practices highlights how these realms can mutually rearticulate each other. Whether a King or not, it is a fact that a group of rats is called a mischief, and that our molecularity is what allows our stratified bodily assemblages to enter into new and surprising relationships. This echoes TITLED’s chain exhibition format which highlights the importance of letting totalities consist of unexpected and seemingly incongruent elements.
My Liquid Reach, Or in the Murk
My Liquid Reach, Or in the Murk is inspired by the watery metaphors and expressions used to describe and naturalise the movement of currency. Starting at our body’s relation to water it undulates outwards and the water becomes just as much an idea as substance. Terms like ‘trickle down’ or ‘bubble up’ are exceptional metaphors that not only borrow water’s characteristics but also directly appropriate them.
Terms like ‘trickle down’ or ‘bubble up’ are exceptional metaphors as they not only borrow water’s characteristics but also directly appropriate them. In a similar vein I ask myself if (or when) the flows of capital take over water’s place in the dominant cultural imaginary as an unquestionable and irrefutable source of life.
The water in this piece has left the biosphere and is instead circulating wealth cloaked in a watery guise. The animations mix illustration styles popularised by Big Tech with classic motifs from art history. Narcissus and ‘Le Penseur’ are drenched in ‘Corporate Memphis’, their bendy limbs washed clean by the ancient artesian aquifier of FIJI Water.
A Voyage Subjected to Joy
