Synopsis
This video poetry is dedicated to shift workers with sleep disorders. Through performative installations, the film recreates the lingering state of insomnia and the technical management of the sleepy or excited body. The film is also related to the pursuit of continuous self-optimization. The body is not directly exposed to the camera of the film but is concealed by the metaphor of the object. When the body is constructed as a place of power relations for science and technology, medical and healthcare, or productive labor, and when the subjectivity is lost in the technical control of biopolitics, how can we achieve the balance between ethics of the body with biological capital?
Wu Jiawen
Wu Jiawen was born in Guangdong in 1996. In 2019, he graduated from the School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor’s degree in Social Art. In 2022, he graduated from the School of Experimental Art, Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master’s degree in Total Art and Crossover study. He is now working and living in Beijing.
Being raised in a labor-intensive industrial area known as the “capital of men's shoes,” Wu Jiawen has long been concerned with the issues related to technology, productive labor, and power relations in body ownership. His artworks include installations, photography, and dynamic images. With the habit of sleeping late since childhood, he always includes the low-light night visual quality in his works.
