'Smoke' - a video by Le Xi

LIFE ON LINE is a multimedia project and exhibition, created by China-born, New York resident Le Xi (surname pronounced shee.). life on line consists of several videos, drawing on yards of black plastic sheeting, and there is also sculpture and ceramics. The video pieces frequently have an accompanying soundtrack created by the artist. The sounds come from indoor and outdoor everyday life, his own sounds, as well as sampling of sounds gleaned from the internet, all transformed into reduplicated looped motifs. Sources of these sounds include the crinkling of plastic wrap, blowing into a microphone and the ambient sound in subway stations. The artist, Le Xi (also Lee Xi), grew up in China and now resides in New York.
Le Xi's life on line encourages the viewer's divergent thinking as the viewer interacts with the art according to the viewer's perceptions and conceptions. life on line could be associated in many ways according to the viewer's experience. It could be life as it is lived online with all the time spent online these days. It could be life on the line- sort of like life on the edge.' It could be life 'through' line, the linear depiction of life. It could be life 'of' the line and lines shown in the art itself, as if the line has 'a life of its own.' In describing life on line, Le Xi thinks of this work as the interaction of 'plus' and 'minus' - positive and negative markings, positive and negative space, on and off, the 1 and 0 of binary systems. "It is a simplification of a wide array of choices presented to us in life from moment to moment, from decision to decision, focusing on plus and minus."
'life on line', which began its installation in New York in Chelsea early in 2009, has traveled to the C.X. Silver Gallery in Brattleboro, Vermont, in May 2009, during the Spring, continues its video presentation throughout the summer, and returns to New York for further exhibitions and installations. For further information, contact Adam Silver, C.X. Silver Gallery cxsilvergallery [at] myfairpoint [dot] net; (802) 257-7898, ext. 2.
Smoke begins with three smokestack-like spouters. These turn into the trousers of a figure. The whole figure is then seen standing having a smoke, one hand cocked, the corresponding arm supported at the elbow by the other arm. The figure takes several puffs of the cigarette, exhales, coughs, and - now and then - gesticulates. All the while, smoke eddies about the video screen, eventually filling up the screen. The smoke resolves into to a lit circle full of lines that turns to the side into the lit end of a cigarette. The smoker then comes into view. As in other videos, the figures head revolves. The soundtrack has the feel of ambient machinery in continual motion.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Le Xi
• le
• xi
• chinese contemporary art
• video
• art
• cxsilvergallery
• Brattleboro
• Vermont
• multimedia
• installation
• drawing
• new
• york
• based
• New
• York
• Chinese
• contemporary