Transmell
May 2014｜「Blip Blink & Move 」exhibition, City university of Hong Kong｜ Interactive installation
A smell can revive a buried memory.
A sweet smell can help you fantasy the future in pain.
Smell is a key to the past and the future.
There's a specific key to each part of your past，while a single key can unlock many doors to your future.
The future we dreamed about becomes the present, where we start to cherish the past.
The present is always the future of our past.
When the smell of the future and that of the past become one, a two-way space-time tunnel is activated with a never-ending loop.
The smell of coffee is a key to my memory and to bring me back to reality. Please enjoy the two-way journey of time and space.
一段記憶，你以為早已忘得一乾二淨，其實，僅僅一個氣味就可以把你瞬間帶回到過去。
一段生活，你以為已經乾枯絕望，卻可以因為一個香甜的氣味而開始產生對未來美好的憧憬。
氣味成為一把鑰匙，能打開通往過去的大門，同時也能打開通往未來的大門。
每一扇通往過去的門有一把特有的鑰匙。每一把鑰匙卻可以打開很多扇不同的通往未來的門。
在過去我們憧憬未來，過去的未來變成了現在，現在我們又愛回憶過去。
有趣的是，現在永遠是過去的未來。
當過去憧憬未來的味道和現在回憶過去的味道是同一個時，雙向時空隧道就開通了，成為一個沒有終結的循環。
在這裡，我把咖啡香甜的氣味當作一把鑰匙，留在桌上，它是一把通往我曾經記憶的鑰匙，也是一把從過去回來的鑰匙。
請盡情享受這場雙向時空之旅。
Back story
All the videos were shot in Beijing,
where I studied and lived before college.
The basements in these videos were my real home during my stay in Beijing.
I was poor and wretched,
like a little ant crawling in the sewer of a giant city. Hoping to change my fate by entering college like everyone else around me,
I repeated daily this routine:
studio, basement and street food stands.
It was a period of time with unpleasant smells.
Bitter, foul.
The only pleasant exception, was to have some free coffee at IKEA.
The machine would roar proudly with a steam blow,
followed by a cup of overflowing sweet smell.
Like the little match girl holding her match,
I would hold the smell tightly in hands,
fantasying the unreachable future, o
ver and over again.
Every time I get close to this smell,
I'm happy with fantasy.
Yet, when I walked out of IKEA,
I would flashback to the smell of reality.
- As it happened -
Start
No interaction for
3 mins, it goes back to reality camera view.
Hold the cup,
a reality camera view will overlap the last scene of the video.
When lifting up the cup to smell, a video will be activated to play
A randomizer selects one of the three to play
「Blip blink & Move 」exhibition
