Bullseye
This series of work is inspired by my unpleasant traveling experiences. One day during my last stay in Miami, my friend and I were trying to go to Little Havana. I set my final destination as “Little Havana” on the Uber app but we ended up in the middle of a residential area rather far away from the main street that most tourists go to. Similar incidents took place several times ever since. I then started to think about how maps decide the center of a certain area. I wonder if that piece of information is accurate or even meaningful at all.
In this series I initiate an investigation on the city of New York and Beijing and the areas within. I would search for the name of the city or area on Google Maps and head directly to the coordinates that the map provides. I would then walk in the vicinities and take pictures of objects and scenes that seem the most typical to that area.
Later in the editing process, I arranged each set of images into a collage by juxtaposing and overlapping parts of photos with similar visual elements. I was then able to create a forced consistency among each set of images based upon mere visual interests. By placing the collaged images onto the map, I deliberately put the two types of contrived reality in contrast with each other.
[Nov 2020]
《靶心》是受到我个人经历启发所做的一些列作品。我之前在打车过程中，多次发现如果把目的地设为一个覆盖面积较广的区域名，地图会自动选择一个定位。但这个定位往往不是那个区域中最有人气、或是大多数人会期待到达的地址。之后我开始思考地图计算这个定位的方式，并好奇这个所谓的“中心”是否准确、甚至是否有任何意义。
在本系列中，我对北京、纽约、与这两个城市中的部分区域展开了调查与探索。我通过在谷歌地图搜索城市或区域名称获得地图给出的定位，并前往那个定位的附近区域拍摄我认为最富那个区域特色的街景。在后期中，我将每个区域拍摄所得的图片进行拼贴，把照片中有视觉联系的元素互相重叠并置，并重新放入谷歌地图中。由此我得以构建属于我的虚假现实，并将其和电子地图所呈现的另一种现实进行对比。
[2020年11月]