Pour Beer
2019
Moving Image
Television, Chair, Sweater, Beer bottle, Glass
1 minutes, 46 seconds...
Pour Beer
2019
Video, television, chair, sweater, beer bottle, glass
1 minutes, 46 seconds
The soundtrack for this video is a lounge music track from China in the 1980s, its title translates as ‘A Bar Girl’s Tears’. The lyrics tell of the reality of a bar hostess, the singer’s voice is cheerful, sweet, tender and slightly sad. European introduced bar culture into Chinese society in the 1980s leading to the rapid development of the Chinese beer industry. The conflict between Western and Chinese culture began to manifest gradually. Compared with western civilization, Chinese culture is more conservative, people will not discuss sex with great fanfare. However, the intervention of western culture has changed many people’s views on these issues, no one can tell whether this is good or bad.
The video interchanges the background music, and the sound of pouring liquid; people hear the music as the beer is poured into the glass, as the beer flows over the character face people hear the beer pouring into the glass. What I want to create are some audio conflicts and reverses to provoke curiosity and reflection. Why do people mean different things when they dump the same beer at different objects with the same action?
The visual experience brought by the attribute of the formal qualities of the golden liquid and the white foam is luxurious. Yet, the beer also has a sexual implication, this is evident in the shot of pouring beer into the mouth, White foam and yellow liquid add to the audience’s association and understanding of the sexual meaning to this video.
In this work, the character is more portrayed in an expressionless state (deadpan humour). On the one hand, I want to reduce the spectator’s attention to the emotional expression of the character itself, but find it very funny. On the other hand, the expressionless state represents a neutral attitude, does not hold any views on the incident, or is a metaphor for the helplessness of being manipulated or the state of self-abandonment.