2008/7/27 AM10 No. A, Zhu Ming, "The Section of Experimental Art at the 19th National Art Exhibition"

It is said that the artist has been interested in the soap bubbles that appear when washing clothes, and he has engaged in its research for almost 20 years. At the beginning, he covered his body with bubbles people blew. Later he pumped water into these bubbles, and finally, he made bubbles huge enough for him to hide inside. The artist has experienced various different stages: from a “bubblization” of his own body, to the use of his own body as containers for bubbles, and lastly to enter the bubble by himself to experience the life and death moments along with the formation and rupture of a bubble. The last stage- entering the bubbles- has unified all three experiments, as the artist exchanges and shares his breath with the air in the bubbles. A metaphoric, artificial “me” has been created. Because of the semi-transparent plastic film of the bubbles, “my” body is presented as a blurry shadow, which further erases the existence of “me,” transforming “me” into an abstract existence of individuals.
The artist is exiled to various different temporal and spatial environments, wondering around until his body reaches the limits. The concrete body has experienced air pressure and extreme isolation, while the bubble drifts aimlessly in the vast world is a metaphor of an individual’s living condition within reality. At a specific time and location, “me” inside the bubble is visible in others’ eyes, but any communication is impossible due to the physical isolations of the bubble. Therefore, the work reveals of an individual’s isolated experiences of living in the world, and the sadness and loneliness of social encounters and isolations resonate among us.
This work is a record of one performance of the bubble series, taken at an anonymous pond on the Xiaoxiang Ling (Daliang Mountains, Sichuan). This work differs from other ones in the series is that the artist has shared with other people in their own bubbles breathing and drifting in this place, and therefore, they have experienced and constructed a unique, ephemeral co-existing life experiences and landscape.