Interim Show

This project is to explore the fragmented self through biological identifiable human’s body parts. According to Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, the self of individuals break into incomplete pieces from the misrecognition at the mirror stage. Everyone who had self-talk before would notice that we are actually functioning as a complex unity of the incompleteness. It’s easy to lose the ability to distinguish oneself from the other with the images on social media. At the same time, every other one has met holds a different imaginary knowledge of one. Of course, as an alive subject, oneself would have formed a self-image as well. Because it seems like the nature of subjects to project themselves into objects, such as a lifeless Ideal-me, and it’s never going to stop until the death. In the process of doing this project, I will invite participants to share their time and be in the same space with me. After disinfection, I will copy and collect their biological identifiable body parts with model-able plastic. This would be a unique moment that I share with participants, and the artwork is the evidence of the existed time.

Process of making

The Story

"There is no evidence that the pilot had any mental issues. In fact, he was very close to his family, but we will do a more detailed background check.

It is known that the plane crashed into the sea somewhere far from the coast and there is very little possibility that anyone survived."

At the press conference, reporters were tapping on their keyboards and everyone was listening intently for the latest news on the missing flight. An old woman with grey hair, seated in the centre of the attendees, stood up suddenly. She shook her fist at the speaker, her eyes were red with tears, "I don't want to listen to this anymore!"

Everyone looked at her. Her whole body shook as she yelled again, "It's been one year, every time it’s the same... still missing, no clues... more than a hundred lives just disappeared..." Before she could finish her speech, she fell down into her chair, her body stiff like an iron plate.

A boy and a girl sitting either side of her hurried to support the old woman.

1.

"My son was almost the same age as you. He was a very shy person. When he was a young man, he worked in this coffee shop every summer."

Three people were sitting together around a table. "He was such a kind child. Every birthday I would make him his favourite dishes and invite his friends to have a party. One day, when he was six years old, I came home from work and saw him sneaking around. I thought he might have done something wrong. But once he saw me, he came over and put a little box in my hand. Inside, there was some candy and a small piece of paper on which he had written, ‘Happy birthday mom!’”

The old woman smiled. “Later, I realised he had seen my birthdate on my staff ID card and had remembered it.” The old woman couldn't stop her eyes from filling with tears.

Suddenly, the room fell dark. She looked around in the darkness, "What's the matter? What happened to the lights? Is it a power outage?”

A girl handed a few tissues to the old woman saying, "The waiter said that the circuit would be repaired in about half an hour." The girl must have been in her twenties and clearly looked after her appearance.

The old woman took the tissues, wiped her eyes and smiled bitterly. "Sorry, I was talking a lot about my own story."

"It's okay. It makes you feel better when you share. Keeping this tragedy to yourself must be very hard," the boy consoled. He was also in his twenties, thin and not very talkative. He was fidgeting with his glass of water the whole time.

"Are you also... family members?" The old woman asked.

The girl nodded. "That's right."

"Do you know each other?"

The boy and the girl looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Tell me your stories," the old woman asked. "I’ve been through this. I know how difficult it is."

The girl looked around the dark coffee shop. She took a long breath before beginning her story. "I lost my ex-boyfriend. We met in college. He was always very thoughtful towards me. Before graduation, we took up internships in different cities. During this period when our relationship became long-distance, we argued a lot and sometimes stood off against each other for days at a time. Once we didn’t talk to each other for a whole week. Then I received a message from him. I thought it would be an apology, but instead it was an expenses form! It must have been sent to me by mistake. I replied, You should have sent this to your boss. He replied, You are my boss as well. He was such a cute guy, it was hard to stay angry at him.”

"That was sweet of him to say." The old woman then turned to the boy, "What about you?"

"No, nothing. I'm not a family member."

"What’s your story?" Asked the girl.

The boy sighed. "Your memories are all wonderful, mine ... is not so good."

"We don't know each other and no one is going to judge you." The old woman said to the boy, "My son didn’t like to tell me much either, but now..."

"Okay." The boy conceded, finally deciding to tell his story. "The person who died was my roommate and colleague. We were assigned to the same company dorm. He rarely spoke."

"Why did you come to this press conference?" The old woman asked, "It doesn’t seem as though you had a close friendship."

"His father and grandparents died long time ago, his mother rejected him, he had no relatives left as far as I know. I was his roommate, and..." The boy hesitated. In the darkness of the room, he found the courage to go on. "And I think something he did might be suspicious. "

"What?"

The old woman and the girl exclaimed at the same time.

The boy sipped some water from his glass, moistened his chapped lips and said, "He was alone, his parents gone and he had no romantic relationships. The missing aircraft was an international flight to Saipan. As far as I know, that was the first time he ever travelled abroad. Why did he choose Saipan?"

"Saipan is a tourist island. Many backpackers travel there alone," the girl said. "You can’t say he has something to do with the accident just because he wanted to fly to Saipan alone."

"At that time, our company was working on a large and urgent project. Our boss wasn’t allowing anyone to take leave. But my colleague insisted on leave despite the project, saying that he had to visit his relatives. How could he have any relatives in Saipan? He even had a big fight with the boss. Isn’t that strange?"

"Maybe he was suffering from a lot of pressure at work and needed a break. If he told the boss he was going just for a holiday, the boss would certainly have forbidden him. Saying he was visiting relatives may just have been a lie to get his leave granted."

The boy continued, "The plane had deviated far from its flight path and eventually disappeared into the sea. This indicates a high probability that it was hijacked. The only people on board the plane were the crew and its passengers. But the investigation has shown that the pilot and the co-pilot both had happy family lives and exhibited no sign of mental distress. Pilots have good salaries and the airline gave them respect. The rest of the crew were also investigated and have similarly shown to have led ordinary lives without any indication of emotional issues. No one suspects either of the pilots or any of the crew. The only possibility that remains is that the aircraft was hijacked by a passenger..."

The girl retorted, "There are some similarities with other aircraft hijackings, such as the September 11 terrorist attacks. But 9/11 had at least four or five terrorists on each aircraft to subdue all the passengers and staff, and at least one of them was able to pilot a plane. But in this accident, none of the passengers had trained as a pilot."

"That's right," said the old woman. "Is your roommate capable of piloting an aircraft?"

"That doesn’t matter," the boy shook his head. "In 9/11 the terrorists’ targets were very precise. They needed pilots. But in this case, the hijackers just needed to get the plane off the course and plunge it into the sea. Whoever did this didn’t need to be able to pilot a plane. Half a year before all this happened, my roommate had been indulging in a flight simulation game and had simulated the route to Saipan many times."

"That's just a game," the girl said.

"What if I tell you that one month before his departure, he went to a real flight simulator several times? This was too costly to be just a pastime, given his wage."

The old woman glared at him, her face pained, "You mean he trained himself to pilot an aircraft?"

"He would have been able to crash a plane at the very least."

"But there would have been many crew members on a plane," said the girl, "How could he control so many people by himself?"

"Perhaps he didn’t act alone." The boy's argument was becoming increasingly logical. "He is a member of the Mutually Aided Death Society."

"What is the ‘Mutually Aided Death Society’? A terrorist organisation?" Quizzed the girl.

"I'm not certain, but I think it’s one of many cult organisations that instigate mass suicide and even help each other to complete death rituals. They believe that life is unequal and that only death is equal. Some of them pursue extraordinary ways of dying and hope that their novel actions make them memorable." The boy looked at the girl and the old woman. "Is there any better way to shock the world than to make a plane full of innocent people disappear forever? A long time after you’ve gone, people from all over the world will keep searching for the wreckage and investigating the cause of the accident. And the families of the victims will never forget."

The girl could stared at him, unblinking, as she processed this new information. Her head was swimming and the dark environment added to her strange feeling. She shrank into her chair.

The old woman frowned and asked, "Do the police know, did you tell them?"

"No." The boy said, frustrated. "Like you said, a game doesn’t prove anything. His mobile phone and laptop are buried along with his body, somewhere under the sea. I haven’t found any evidence. The police wouldn’t take me seriously, they would just dismiss me as another conspiracy theorist."

"What's his name?" The old woman stared at the boy's fuzzy figure in the darkness, not about to let this lead go.

"I can't say. It's private."

"You must tell me!" The old woman stood up. "My child is dead, her boyfriend is dead, more than a hundred people are dead! You must say it!"

"Yes, you must tell us!" Proclaimed the girl. "Between the three of us, we might be able to dig up more evidence."

The boy sighed and finally stopped resisting. He whispered, "His name is Tahn Lee."

2.

"Nonsense!" The old woman yelled.

"It’s impossible!" The girl exclaimed.

The boy was surprised. He asked, "Do you know him?"

"Tahn Lee is my son! My son would never do this, don't try to frame him!" The old woman barked angrily. She realised something and turned to the girl, "You also know Tahn?"

"Tahn is my boyfriend, or my ex-boyfriend."

"Are we talking about the same person?" The boy was puzzled. " We are talking about Tahn Lee from Chongqing who graduated from Chongqing University?"

"Yes! Tahn Lee is my son." The old woman was furious, her lips trembling.

"But..." the girl interrupted, "Why did we all sit together?"

"Remember when we requested our seats for the press conference, we were asked to provide the names of the victims we knew and our relationship to them. It is not surprising that we were seated together – the organisers must have presumed we all knew each other,” the boy reasoned. “The really weird thing is that during the two years we lived together, I have never heard Tahn Lee call either of you!"

"It’s not wired that you don’t know me." The girl sighed. "We broke up before graduation. He probably didn’t want to mention me. But he would never do such a thing as to kill a hundred innocent people, he is not such a dark person."

The old woman snorted at the boy, "Even if you don't like Tahn, you don’t have to frame him as the hijacker of a plane!"

The boy put his hands up in surrender, "I don’t want to make any assertions about to this accident. Don't look at me like that. I’m only saying what I know, what I’ve observed. Since all three of us know Tahn Lee, why don’t we share our knowledge of him and try to build a picture of him together? It still doesn’t make sense that Tahn booked to go to Saipan in the first place."

"You have made everything up. Even if you were his roommate, how could you know him better than me?" the old woman said angrily.

Perturbed, the boy went on, "Before he left, he told me that he’s going to do an important thing and that nothing could stop him. Isn’t this enough evidence? What’s so important about travelling to Saipan? You’re his mother, did he tell you the important thing he was going to do in Saipan?"

The old woman was silent for a long moment. She said, "He is not a child, he doesn’t have to tell me everything."

"So, you haven't seen Tahn for a long time?"

"Tahn works every holiday. I asked him why he never comes home to see me, and he said..." The old woman tailed off.

The girl glanced at the old woman and picked up the story, "His father died when he was eight years old, his mother was an alcoholic. He often lived with his grandma, but his grandma passed away before he went to university, so he had no family left to visit.

I talked with Tahn about his mother few times. I told him, Your mom might drink a lot, but she is still your mother, maybe you should see her once in a while. But Tahn said that after his father passed away, his mother often scolded him. He didn't want see her anymore."

The old woman leaned back in her chair and didn’t say a word.

"That's right!" The boy stood up, "When Tahn was a kid, you often scolded him after getting drunk, didn’t you? Tahn's grandma didn't want to him to be abused, so she often took Tahn to her place, isn’t that right?"

"But I know him, he wouldn’t do this kind of thing, he was a positive person." The girl countered, "even though he encountered many difficulties, he still faced life with smile. He can’t have been the hijacker!"

"Why did you break up?" Said the boy. "Was it just because of graduation?"

"Relationships are complex things, but Tahn has nothing to do with hijacking a plane." The girl was angry, "He is an innocent victim!"

"Is your dress expensive?" Said the boy. "Tahn Lee was a poor young man. He must have felt a lot of pressure to lavish you with gifts when you were together."

"I don’t know."

"So, then, why did you break up?"

"I just wanted him to spend more time with me, to do things together that any couple would do: go on dates, watch movies, travel together. But he was always so busy. We often quarrelled about it. After graduation, he decided to stay at the company who he had interned with and that meant being based in different city to me. I felt as though he was avoiding me intentionally." The girl's voice grew hoarse, "I never asked for gifts or demanded that he pay for me. I don't know why he felt like he couldn’t stay around me for too long."

"Because he needed to work!"

Learning that her son’s life had been troubled even after they had parted ways, the old woman sighed and said to herself, "It’s too late, everything is too late..."

"I couldn't understand why such a highly educated young man would wanted to launch a suicide attack. What was his motivation? But everything makes sense now." The boy said confidently, "His father died when he was eight, his mother drank and beat him, he had a fruitless love while at university, he tried so hard but ultimately lost everything he treasured. The hijacking was his last big attempt to get everyone to remember him."

"If you hate Tahn so much, why did you come to the press conference?"

"Because I knew the last piece of the puzzle," he said, his victorious smile fading away from his face. "Initially, he didn’t plan on going to Saipan – he first bought a ticket back to his hometown. Maybe he wanted a rest, or maybe he just wanted to see one of you again, his former lover or his mother."

"What did you do to Tahn? Why did he go to Saipan in the end?" The old woman asked.

"I told the boss that Tahn didn't have an urgent reason to have time off, that he just wanted a break." The boy said, "But I don't think I did anything wrong. Everyone was working hard and putting in overtime, why should he get to go on a vacation? "

"His life was already so hard, why would you be so mean to him?" The old woman asked through her tears.

"I didn't know his situation at the time. I didn't know he would change his mind and take the flight to Saipan in the end. After I told our boss, he spoke with Tahn and they had a big fight in the office. He had no future in the company anymore. His family all gone, his lover gone, then his work gone. He must have been desperate. That’s why he said that he had something big to do.”

None of the them spoke. They all seemed to concur that this summary was logical.

"Tahn wanted to be a pilot when he was a child and he finally had his dream." The old woman said to herself, "Tahn... Oh, my Tahn."

3.

"Tahn hasn't worked here for a long time." A man came towards the group, holding a lamp. He glanced out of the window at a maintenance technician who was busy repairing the circuit.

"Do you know Tahn as well?" The girl asked.

"I do. He used to work here in my coffee shop every summer, back when he was a student." The man said, "Do you all know him?"

They nodded yes.

"How is he?"

"He died," said the boy. "He was on the missing plane to Saipan..."

"Oh, gosh!" The man couldn't believe it. "Tahn Lee?"

"Yes, Tahn Lee."

"Oh, destiny!" The man sighed. "He told me once that Saipan was on the top of his bucket list. But that when he went there, he would never return."

"Do you know why he wanted to go to Saipan?" The girl asked.

"I think he said it was because his dad once gave him a photo book with Saipan on the cover."

"Is it that simple?" The boy was shocked, "Is there any other reason?"

"There are lots of reasons a young guy might want to go to Saipan." The man smiled. "Beach, beauties, bikinis…"

"Have you heard of the Mutually Aided Death Society?" The old woman asked.

"I am the president." The man was surprised. "How come a lady your age knows about the Mutually Aided Death Society?"

"What does it do?"

"It's an e-sports gaming community." The man smiled. "Come to think of it, Tahn and I first met in a game. He seemed to be short of money and I was short of staff here, so I let him work for me."

The three were stunned for a moment, as if they had just wondered into a dream. They were blindfolded by this darkness and could only rely on intuition, feeling they were falling deeper into an abyss. They tried to see Tahn clearer, but the more they tried the more he became blurred in their memories, slowly sinking into the endless sea.

The old woman felt like she couldn’t breathe. After a while she asked, "What did you think of Tahn?"

"Tahn..." The man thought for a moment, struggling to find the proper words. "Tahn was an ordinary guy." He picked up his lamp and left, sighing.

The boy stood up and said to the group, "What if the shop owner is an accomplice? Maybe he even planned everything?"

"Tahn would not do that. I was not a good mother to him, him left me so early..." The old woman stood up, wiping away her tears.

"Don't argue anymore." The girl also stood up and looked at the old woman, then turned to look at the boy.

There was a clatter of tools and suddenly all lights turned on at once. The intensity of the light blinded them momentarily, leaving them unable to open their eyes, and the shadows of the three were projected on to the wall. Shadows of various shapes and stark in their incompleteness.