She is a white collar (toplofty looking and designer-clad), sometimes dazed, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia; she is a part-time prostitute, a masturbator, addicted to both cheap and expensive drugs, both with the same overwhelming pull; she has a love for pistols (dummy ones, of course), a wild imagination, which is actually her subconscious desire to kill. Standing on a balcony, she picks out a random target, imaging it to be a man who raped her with a disgusting penis. Bang, bang, bang, she fires. | ![]() |
Yang Yong
Yang Yong, The Cruel Diary of Youthââ¬âThe Dusk of Gods, 2000. C-print, 120 x 76 cm. Courtesy of Pékin Fine Arts.
She is a white collar (toplofty looking and designer-clad), sometimes dazed, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia; she is a part-time prostitute, a masturbator, addicted to both cheap and expensive drugs, both with the same overwhelming pull; she has a love for pistols (dummy ones, of course), a wild imagination, which is actually her subconscious desire to kill. Standing on a balcony, she picks out a random target, imaging it to be a man who raped her with a disgusting penis. Bang, bang, bang, she fires.
She imagines she’s on the run. What is after her could be her boss, a phone call, even the air. She shows up in an office looking nervous; she hurries into a long dark underpass and disappears. Three a.m. by a roadside, a carmine cigarette butt brings her too much lust. Taxis speed by. Her fantasy and impulse in a bathroom engulf everyone in the audience. In a street so noisy and brightly lit, dazzling lights, blurry sight of crowds, together with a tilting pavement, could turn her on so fast—she “flies” so high. Her running silhouette flies above an eventful park, a sunken bed, streets filled with drunk people, rooftops—an ideal place to commit suicide. She licks her tongue reflected in a mirror in a lady’s room, intoxicated in a bar where she could French-kiss whomever at first glance, men or women.
I play and participate in such a game in a way less like a director than a spontaneous partaker. The rule of the game is: there are no rules. The protagonist is supposed to be a fictitious character with sophisticated personalities. When she appears in a quotidian scenario, she seems to be muttering, “Am I myself?” These pictures, or maybe one, like still frames, are just like scenes from a movie named The Cruel Diary of Youth.
It is this reality consummated by virtuality that excites me.