Liuzhou former Air Compressor General Factory transforming into the artistic theme park with diverse array of disciplines, impression of the artworks in progress.
Using technology to see and be remotely present via video call at the place where technology excelled into becaming art
This is a story, an impression of a moment shared with the artists at the other part of the world (due to my restrictions to travel from C19 pandemic). Everyone is shaping the technology which initially shaped their ideas, an eternal life between the vision and reality and as self aware beings, an eternal question is posed: which one is more fantastical or more real, reality or imagination? Today I entered into the world of magic, not just any magic that we see in the movies or read about in the fairy tales but artistic magic, a power of transformation that touched the hearts and reshaped the history.
Immediatly upon seeing the place of transformation at Liuzhou, one goes through the association to the Steampunk, the mixing of the modern media with the traditional handmade art forms and a famous saying by the scholars Rachel Bowser and Brian Croxall comes to mind in the most noble intention: "the tinkering and tinker-able technologies within steampunk invite us to roll up our sleeves and get to work re-shaping our contemporary world". The arrangement of the artworks being made in Liuzhou in many respect have some joining points with the above statement, however they extend much further and broader. Retrofuturism comes to mind in equal associations, "the future as seen from the past and the past as seen from the future" reanimating the anachronistic elements, we live in the flux of constant changes, trends and power battles, the work in progress at the site is a specific journey into the times of the mid 20th century. The narrative of the selected designs are communicating the story of our collective and primordial past, with archetypes emerging through large scale sculptures. Many of them featuring figurative language where one can recognize the glimpse of a horse, a grasshopper, doves, wings, imaginative creatures always powerfully evoking mythological imaginatorium, universal across the world, even though having different names through languages that define them. These creatures are emerging from the factory pieces, the archaic circle and the box, the interplay of the hide and seek with the box finally triumphant in terms of the external design and the circles being the engine of all the machines of those times which leads us to the mystical.
It is fascinating to observe the creativity that comes into power, demands and commands the transformation that is carrying the universal message, with child like innocence to rise above the material and into the imaginative, meaningful domain where humanity unites. The collection of artworks that are in the process of making represent just these messages from observing the past machines to inhaling life to the future as the machines stand ingrained deeply in the roots of every form. This has the symbolics to the way genetics builds upon from one block to another, always embedding the material from the past and transforming and adopting towards the future. Some of the pieces are featuring a very large scale even up to 9 meters in heights sending a statement to the world of the solemn solitude of the one that leads, surrounded by the wings of change, every so often as the time changes, while some other pieces communicate a very delicate message, reminiscing of the mythological, magical fairyland, the creatures that we all so loved as children. One couldn't help but wonder at those times more than half a century ago, when these factory pieces had entirely different purpose, much closer to material world, did the workers actually had some dreams of the fantastical reality beyond and maybe part of those dreams are now taking shapes. I have to say that I suspect that they probably had those dreams and only if the machines could tekk the stories and drama of life that revoled as the Earth went around the Sun over and over, it is such an honor to give new life to these pieces having in mind all the hands and minds that touched upon them and spent hours of care, persistence and upliftment. They worked as one once, and now again in the 21st century machines are given a much more etherial meaning through the eyes of the international group of artists and local people, working together as one and for one cause which is uplifting the humanity to another level of humanness.
I truly hope that this project will have a great success as it is already on a good way of becoming the best version of the self, powerful transformation and that after the C19 is behind us, more people in the world can witness the power of art and the speed and genuine intentions with which Liuzhou art park is nurturing it.
（Irina Ideas 2020.9.14）
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