The UP-ON International Live Art Festival has been held for 12 years, and more people are paying attention to, understanding and supporting it. I am relieved! There are many wonderful and interesting articles about this year’s art festival. The five professional critics of this festival will also follow up with articles, so I will not elaborate here. I am grateful to many people for supporting UP-ON in various ways over the years!
—— Zhou Bin
Oct 24th A4 Art Museums,ON-SITE PERFORMANCE
At 2pm on October 24th, the 12th UP-ON International Live Art Festival opening ceremony was held in A4 Art Museum. Speakers included: Sun Li – A4 Art Museum Director, Liu Chengying- UP-ON festival representative, Brain Patterson and Zheng Que – artist representative, Li Zhen – critic representative, Zha Changping- UP-ON observer representative, Zhu Qingsheng – academic guest.
Seiko Kitayama (JAPAN) Title: Shooting a Rubber Band Toward the Sun Duration: 2h 50mins (From 12:25 pm to 15:15 pm)
I shot a rubber band toward the sun until it disappeared behind the building. It was a cloudy day, but I could still see the sun behind the clouds. When I couldn’t see the sun at all, I imagined its position behind the clouds and followed the line along which it moved.
Alan Schacher（AUSTRALIA） Title: An Uneasy Piece with Eggs Duration: 1 hour
First performed in Sydney, Australia in 2017, this was only the second time I’ve performed this work. In 2017 I was 64 years old and now I’m turning 72. I have made a few different works involving eggs, which for me are ‘quirky’ objects, and traditionally are a symbol of life. In this performance I consider my relationship with age, life and culture. Wearing a business suit I break 72 eggs one by one onto the top of my head.
The title firstly plays on the words ‘piece’ and ‘peace’, which sound the same. A piece being a performance work, and ‘making peace’ with oneself. Also I refer to sometimes feeling that I fit in ‘Asian’ culture and to the resulting cultural adaptations one makes. An egg is white on the outside and yellow on the inside. In this way it is also a reference to Singaporean performance artist Lee Wen’s “Journey of a Yellow Man” series, in which he painted himself yellow (already being a ‘yellow’ man).
The number of eggs used is equivalent in number to my age in years: 72. In British measurement 72 eggs is 6 dozen, a dozen is 12. Interestingly I’ve come around to my sixth return of the Year of the Dragon in which I was born, occurring every 12 years. Counting eggs, counting years, observing declining virility and fertility. The egg is a symbol of life and ceremony in many traditions including in my own Jewish culture.I acknowledge that in this performance I waste food but here I am not working from the concept of food and nourishment, but with the egg as a symbol.
Standing in a circular tray which collects the broken shells and egg matter, I attempt to briefly recall significant moments of each passing year I’ve lived. At the end of the performance I remove my suit, shirt and shoes. Standing only in my underpants I lower a line attached to clothes hangers and then raise up the clothing as the empty shell of my existence, with the shoes replaced onto the tray. This final installation and my absence from it represent the fragility of human existence and our uncertainty as to how many years we are allocated.
For me quite unexpectedly, several of the audience interfered and interacted by stealing eggs, not knowing their meaning in advance. I actually submitted the text about the performance before the festival so I expected people would be informed. I didn’t expect audience to cross the ‘threshold’ of the circular tray in which I stood and the step of the base of the tower. Many people asked how I felt after these intrusions. Actually I was a bit angry because they were stealing years from me! Also I was concentrating hard to recall each year and that flow was disturbed. In the end most eggs were returned to me, but had they not been returned I think I would have stood silently to see what would happen.
Lucia Bricco （ITALY） Title: Human Unhappiness Duration: 20mins
The action Human unhappiness wants to open and articulate a discussion on the conscious feeling of happiness experienced by human beings in particular, which somehow differs from other animal beings, by intervening on its structure. It is the action of inhabiting and traversing in reverse this whole feeling in its plurality.
In the situation where structures and dynamics are reversed, the forces that govern the game, in this case first and foremost gravity, open up a context that is no longer light and carefree, but risky and daring.This is because, within the complex context, systems are no longer guided by the assumption that the easiest and most straightforward way to reach fulfilment must be used, but rather that the disruption of the rule and the introduction of doubt leads to a more complete feeling, in which no details or contradictions are excluded, but embraced in its entirety.
Here then, unhappiness, instead of sadness, becomes in parallel able to also include happiness, as it is the inversion and sum of the qualities of a feeling. In an upturned swing, the force of gravity still allows natural rocking. In the Italian language, the word ‘gravity’ (gravità) refers both to the physical force that drags bodies toward the center of the Earth, and to the quality of being heavy, grave, which is proper to a seriously difficult situation that arouses concern and danger. In a way, I think happiness can be grave in many senses.
Technical support by Vincenzo Giannantonio.
WENJIE Junjie （SHENZHEN） Title: Working Together: Cleaning the Floor Duration:30 minutes
I invited a cleaning robot to work with me to clean a floor. During the work, I would follow the robot’s path at first, then the robot and I would work separately, and finally I would physically interfere with the robot until it ended due to an unknown pause. In this act of both work and performance, the interaction between the human and the robot (code) and the contrasting perspectives of performance and intelligence that the audience may have bring out different interpretations in the social context of human-robot coexistence. Being both a human product and a partnership gives the cleaning robot a certain emotional projection and spiritual symbolism.
YAN Jun（BEIJING）Title: Linear Duo. Duration: 40 minutes Performance with HU JiaYi
This is a piece about time. Generally speaking, a duo is played by two musicians at the same time, then a linear duo is played by two people in turn. The two people use their own time. Their co-operation is a back-and-forth relationship. The game between them is how to divide the time.Regardless of who plays it and how it is played, as long as the rules are followed, the piece is complete, neither better nor worse. A performer can show it off or cover it up, add his or her own style, technique, breaks, whatever.While one performer is performing, another is simply a person waiting for himself to start performing and, if possible, to withdraw from the performing state.
Oct 25th A4 Art Museums,ON-SITE PERFORMANCE
Adina Bar-On (ISRAEL) Title: About Love Duration: 1 hour
During the presentation of the performance About Love the audience can arrive at any time, be seated, leave, and return to the performance as it will suit them.About Love is composed of three chapters whose movement and images express the woes of war. The three parts evolve in a silent, slow and meditative manner.The three chapters are based on the following three images:
* A seated woman wearing black, holds a white porcelain bowl which contains a white but soiled baby`s shirt. Her pointing-finger as well as the inside of her palm are maked in black. Her hands, marked with black color, handle the small soiled shirt while they touch the bowl`s form.
* A standing woman wearing black, her pointing-finger and the inside of her palm are marked in black color, holds a gold coin. She moves the gold coin against her black attire and her the black of her stained finger and palm, while one of her knees is bent upon the seat of the chair pressing upon a hanging white baby`s shirt.
*A seated woman wearing black, her pointing-finger and the inside of her palm are marked in black color, holds a folded baby`s shirt. She sensually unfolds a print of Durer`s “Madonna and Child” from the inside the baby`s folded shirt.
Xu LiShuang （SHANGHAI） Title: Overlook. Duration:45 minutes
The artist interviewed and collected the hair of a4’s staff members – He Zhen, Tang XiaoQiao, He XuanXuan, Kimi, Tang Yixiang, Zhang Haoyue, He YanMing, Shi NaiWei, Zoe, Shu E, Ye ZiMeng, XiaoJi, siying, Chen Nan, Kuang FengBin, Jiang ZiBo, and Liu HuaYing – and then used the hair to make an “invisible web” to hang somewhere in the gallery. During the performance, the artists and the audience worked together to weave an ‘invisible web’ with these hairs, which was hung somewhere in the gallery.
Alex Conway (IRELAND) Title: Heartless Duration: 30 minutes
As a visual artist, I’m often uncomfortable writing about my work. I admire writers for their ability to build entire worlds with only words, filling blank pages with imagination, no physical space required. In a way, it’s like drawing—if we imagine they still use pens. For me, however, writing feels unnatural, in part due to a learning difficulty that made school an uncomfortable, often humiliating experience. Those early struggles led me to forge my own path.This journey began with a simple box of crayons from China, a gift from my mother when I was young. It was my only comfort during school days. I remember the box vividly—a small image of a happy Chinese girl drawing, inviting me into her joy. That box connected me to China in a joyful way, sparking an early affinity that I carry to this day.When it comes to my work, it takes me months to process what I’ve done before I can attempt to explain it. Even then, words seem inadequate, like they can only scratch the surface. I prefer to leave threads in my art for viewers to grasp, allowing them to build their own interpretations drawn from their own lives. Often, what they discover is far more interesting than anything I could explain.This particular project is deeply connected to China. The work began to take shape there, especially in the sleepless nights of my residency in Chongqing, thanks to CCAM. My six weeks of research back in Ireland felt like gathering ingredients for a hotpot, preparing for what would later unfold. The final piece, a curtain exhibited at the A4 Museum, marked the point when I felt the work was ready. Support from the UP-ON Festival, Jia, and my roommate, Brian Patterson, helped bring this vision to life. As they say: once you carry your own water, you understand the value of every drop. Performance participant: Emma
Chang Jian (YINCHUAN) Title: IMAGINE Duration: 30 minutes
Three objects, one voice, and a live audience participate in the presentation of the work. The sharing of the ‘toys’ echoes the way good relationships are built in human childhood, and the collaboration between the audience is what I would like to see happen as a result of that relationship building. These beautiful states of human beings can at some point be transformed into an experience of love, which alone deserves a heartfelt response, so when the toy is finally assembled, I will open the nine year old letter in order to present that heartfelt response. The repaired broken monk doll at the site came from the hands of a relative, and the use of human emotion on an object with religious colours and repeated viewing of it made me think that the essence of a formal religious experience is still in the mind and emotions of human beings, so the focus is not on religion but on the mind itself. The sound that accompanies the song ‘Imagine’, which continues to be played live, as well as the full song that is played at the end of the show, is the result of a certain kind of human thinking, and the sound that results from that thinking is also my dream. And this dream came from the power of the people I saw in 2014, which prompted me to do my first art-related event, and this is one of the sounds that I play at every group event, so this dream needs to be mentioned again and again. I think this dream needs to be mentioned again and again, and the reason I cried in the middle of it was because I felt a sense of ‘reconnecting with the world’ that I felt nine years ago. ‘IMAGINE’ is a thought, and “IMAGINE” is a methodology.
Phoebe – Lin Elnan (NORWAY&SINGAPORE) Title：Echo Tours－ Paris Duration: 40 minutes
Echo Tours is a guided walking “eco-tour” based on the premise that it is more green to fly one tour guide over to China than have all the audience members go to Paris. Echoing across space, time and language, the guide and the translator welcome the artsy crowd and set off on a brisk walk through the city’s main tourist attractions. The magic and splendour of Paris is evoked in the grounds of the A4 museum (standing in for both Centre Pompidou and the Louvre museum), by transposing iconic Parisian sites onto vaguely similar features of the European-inspired gated community of Luxetown, Chengdu. Paris, in this performance (or as one local resident was overheard calling it: scam), represents the unattainable dream of seizing a nostalgic and romantic mirage: seen from afar, the fantasy remains intact. This simulated tourist experience questions the existence of authenticity; like the Eiffel Tower keychain handed out at the end of the tour, it is but a simulacra of what has already been replaced. Collaborator: Zoe Li Wenwen
LIN YiXing（BEIJING） Title: The Wisdom Teeth Duration: 20 minutes
The hidden layers of pain accumulate and give rise to subtle sounds, creaking and groaning. You become so accustomed to it that, at times, you might pick up the pain, lick the scab, but you don’t truly mind. After all, this is how everyone perceives it. What else can you do, if you don’t ignore it or confront it head-on with the hardest part of your being? It’s always there.“TheWisdom Teeth” explores how structural violence in the world around us can be deconstructed. Through a medical scene that triggers memories of pain, the work delves into how violence, insidiously embedded in our lives, is created, distorted, and flows in certain directions. A dentist, children, performers in the style of the Moulin Rouge, a passionate crowd, and chanting worshippers take turns appearing in the scene, yet “you,” the subject of the dental case, remain absent… Performance Volunteers: Cha XinJie, Qiao PeiChen, Wei MingYi, Wu Yi, YangYun XiZI
Oct 26th JIN YUE Children Art Museums, ON-SITE PERFORMANCE
At 2pm on October 26th, the 12th UP-ON International Live Art Festival opening ceremony was held in Jinyue Children’s Art Museum. Speakers included: Judy – Jinyue Children’s Art Museum Director, Zhou Bin- UP-ON festival representative, Seiko Kitayama and Yan Jun- artist representative, Chen Liuyi – critic representative, Zhang Yi – UP-ON observer representative.
Yamaoka Sakiko (JAPAN) Title: Night and Day Duration: 40 minutes
Since a few years ago, I have created “repetitive performances”. Many were as Long Durational Performances, lasting five, eight or ten hours. For the UP-ON festival, I had ended the act after about 40 minutes, at the pace of the audience watching several artists’ works in turn. But it continued conceptually.After almost 30 years of experience as a performance artist, I have come to realise that the basis of human behaviour and life can be summed up in round-trip movements. The very same applies to nature. The morning comes, the night comes.Minimal art made with music may be old-fashioned, but the experience of working with the human body and real materials is something else. It improves skills, creates a rhythm and, moreover, a pace that becomes habitual and eventually leads to boredom, fatigue, malaise, deterioration/ageing and resistance that comes from natural principles by the body. I find it beautiful to continue to slow down by micro-adjusting concentration and speed, accepting what I cannot do, and so on, as I consciously or unconsciously lean into the swell of the great natural flow.This year, since the spring, I had made pieces in which stones taken from the river were moved and carried between two tables. For this time I decided to use materials that were visual, tasteful and imaginative, so I used one large potted plant, two tables of different shapes and three pieces of ice. Rather than a concept, I chose the materials based on the balance between the look, feel and temperature of the materials. It was good to see that some audience imagined life on earth and the water cycle in this performance. I feel that the work was sufficiently atmospheric as art.
Karin Meiner (GERMANY) Title: Inter-Action Duration: 20 minutes
At the request of the organisers, I gave a title ‘Inter-Action’ before the trip to China because it is an elementary term and I did not yet have a fixed concept, leaving it open as to whether I would be inspired by a specific place or situation. For me, interaction is an interface to show evolutionary and memory, the general and the concrete. At the beginning of the UPON festival in Chengdu, all the artists were shown the possible performance venues. I had ideas buzzing around in my head about what I could do where and how, and found the right location in the JinYue Children Art Museum and came up with the idea of a minimalist, reduced performance for which I only needed my body and a small crawling animal. When asked what material I needed, I asked for a small animal that crawls, is not poisonous and does not bite. Three days before the performance, Zhou Bin gave me a small, very hectic animal, which I kept in a jar with soil, plants and leaves under a perforated foil. The next day I found a woodlice under stones, exactly the same animal that I know from my garden and which I also put in a jar, always concerned that the two creatures have good survival conditions. For the performance, I placed the jar with the woodlice on a base in the room and asked the audience to stand around me. I carefully took the animal out of the jar and showed the little creature on my hand and it startet crawling. I asked questions in the room that define the special characteristics of performance art: ‘What about the body?’ ‘What about the space?’ ’What about time?’ ‘What about the audience?’ and moved around the room, showing the crawling woodlice on top of me. The audience came very close to me to see the little animal on my body. I slowly moved towards the door where I asked the last question: ‘What about freedom?’ and walked towards the garden and the audience followed me. At a certain point in the garden, I released the little creature into freedom. In its minimalism, the performative work was focussed on a complex poetic unfolding. The special moments arise in the movement of the general universal and at the same time the general consists of the movement of the individual moments, the special.
Huan Huang (CHONGQING) Title: Good Duration: 30minutes
Is it really ‘good’?Through the transformation of bodily movements, the meaning of “good” is continuously shifted, until the definition of “good” – the ideal that has long been revered and desired – ultimately loses its meaning.
Brain Patterson (N.IRELAND) Title: SPACE-TIME-MATTER(s) Duration: 40 minutes
My performance involved the interrelation of space, time and matter with consciousness. Beginning with the lighted match, the first impulse, like the big bang, light travelling faster than sound, represents the beginning of space and time, so time begins. Time measures changes in matter moving in space, water dropping, making sound, marking time.Expansion of time and space through memo notes, represent two aspects of time and space, the horizontal line represents chronological time, past and future, the perpendicular line, Kairos time, the present moment, always full of potential for appropriating, and something new to emerge. This energy can be sensed through silence. The present moment is divided, between consciousness (the upper half) and unconsciousness (the lower half), two aspects of being alive.A playful aspect was finding the discarded wire used to change positions, bringing me to the bowls, the four larger bowls representing the cardinal points. Magnetised needles, with a bead at one end, so all were pointing in the same direction. Magnetism represents the invisible forces of attraction and repulsion in our world and bodies.The mirror with the two sandcastles was a play of childhood games; its placement in the future time dimension represents the state of the world – divided, using the symbol of division.
Bringing them together is the power of compassion and art, to help realise ourselves and overcome internal and external conflicts. I wanted this symbol of union to be raised in the air, as if by magic; there is a saying about ideas – sandcastles in the air. This is about the impossibility of things, but performance art is also magical with a transformative power for the audience through the artist, all becoming SPACETIMEMATTERING.Notes:1. The first clock to measure time, was a water clock.2. Post-it notes, used to remember things in the future or past.3. ‘Appropriate’, means to make it one’s own.4. This symbol of division is visible in Belfast, where so-called ‘peace walls’ separate communities. I learned this during a community project where I was trying to bring back the 77 Bus that served all the communities before the Troubles. It was said that if the 77 bus ever came back inot service, that it would be a sign of peace. I realised that the two dots on either side of the line represented the community centres, divided by a peace wall, which is also the mathematical symbol of division.
Keike Twisselmann (GERMANY) Title: Unborn Duration: 30 minutes
The “Unborn” was conceived exclusively and site-specific for the Jinyue Children’s Art Museum.It is the most recent part of the “Threshold Series”, a series of performances spanning over the past 20 years under the general theme of “in-between / being and becoming / transition between the physical and the virtual realm”.All these performances are one-off actions within their own time and space, never ever to be repeated. We cannot step back in time, but:“We are stepping into the same river and not the same river – we are, and we are not.” (Heraklit)It was the most secluded, enclosed of the “Threshold Series” so far.Becoming in Being, Being in BecomingThe unborn thought, the unborn child, already there within it’s own secluded universe between manifesting in shape and sound ……the space of the “Unborn” was so small and confined, that only 15 people (+ photographers and one film maker) could safely stand inside the chamber.These 15 people were randomly selected by chance – like the lottery of life ……the other interested audience were outside – listening in on the sounds generated by interacting with the stones, the scrap iron bits, the person in white humming an old lullaby …… the only live visual link being their small phone screens of the live video stream – looking into the dark womb on an ultrasound scan of the yet Unborn.They were the midwives and witnesses to an unborn thought.
Li LinXi (CHENGDU) Title: A Great Endless Sadness Duration: 60 minutes
In both indoor and outdoor settings, through my installation piece “Je prends tous les plaisirs pour moi”, I engaged in an hour-long performance that integrated elements such as bodily interaction with the audience, games, sound, and scent. In the shifting scenes of liveliness and melancholy, public and private spaces, I co-created with the audience a cross-temporal dialogue spanning childhood, adolescence, and youth. Together, we experienced the pure joy of childhood, the sincere longing for freedom, and the bittersweetness that accompanies it.
Zhang Ke (CHONGQING) Title: Time Out Duration: 15 minutes
Secretly slip the alarm clock into the audience’s pocket without their awareness
Silence
3 seconds
2 seconds
1 second
In the intense concentration of darkness,
Suddenly, an untimely alarm rings from someone’s body, growing in number.
Time-killer take them out one by one with a water gun.
Ai ZhongLiang (CHONGQING) Title: Towards a melodramatic performance art Duration: 2hours
This work is part of Ai Zhongliang’s social practice project.It involved a discussion with seventeen artists/curators and professionals from related fields.No recording or filming was allowed during the event, and participants actively engaged in discussions for a duration of two hours.Date: October 26, 2024, 20:00 to 22:00 / Location: Zone A, Nongyuan International Art Village, ChengduParticipants (listed alphabetically by surname):Ai ZhongLiang, Cang Xin, Deng Feng, Huang Huan, He Jun, Liu ChengYing, Ni Weihua, Ren Qian, Sun HaiLi, Tu GongQin, Wu JianChun, WenJie Junjie, Yang Li, Yin YuRu, Yue Xia, Zhu JiXiang, Zhao PuXin.
Oct 27th NY International Art Village , ON-SITE PERFORMANCE
At 2pm on October 27th, the 12th UP-ON International Live Art Festival opening ceremony was held in NongYuan International Art Village. Speakers included: Xie Boyuan – NongYuan International Art Village representative, Liu Chengying – UP-ON festival representative, Tamar Raban and Ni Weihua – artist representative, Li Han – critic representative, Chen Mo- UP-ON obsever representative.
Boris Nieslony (GERMANY) Title: Koan, Daily Life Plot Duration: 1hours
(no interpretation of this performance)Thoughts to the sentencesa – Koan, daily life plotand the titleb – „Koan, Daily Life Plot „ (Up-On 2024)aThe words “Koan, daily life plots” form the guiding principle when I use given spaces (public, semi-public or interior spaces) and transform them into situations in which events happen that have the character of a work. I call this process allotropic. It is atmospheric, has characteristic properties such as pressure, warmth, proximity, inclination and blends in with natural, unprocessed materials. In linguistic-philosophical terms, this is the transformation from an indeterminate place to a specific place.bFor the work “Koan, Daily Life Plot ” (Up-On 2024) I was able to use the central materials stone (rock weighing 1,200 kg), the tools truck with fixed crane and 2 skilled workers.Other tools were:Action mode: four conceptual approaches.1 – The rock (stone) should hang directly above my crown (head) for about an hour. This height should be fixed at the beginning.2 – The horizontal position of the rock (stone) should be subject to fluctuations triggered by me.3 – The rock (stone) should be subject to possible changes at my request and with the help of the two specialists (e.g. height adjustment).4 – Allow other natural materials in surrounding.Movement mode:Changing the floating position of the stone by head, neck, back, hands, arms, face, etc.Inclination through affection; approach through approach; atmospheric bonding; the breathing of the stone;Resonating with the light vibrations of the stone; lying under the stone and bridging the vertical distance with a branch with leaves (cut from the surrounding bushes).Poetic final image: lying on my side under the stone and taking a grain of rice from a small porcelain bowl and letting it fall into my left ear – letting this sound resonate – continuous.
Ni Weihua (SHANGHAI) Title：Trace – NongYuan Zone A Duration: 30 minutes
” Trace – NongYuan A Zone” is the latest in a series of tracing activities initiated by me, spanning over six years and involving more than 2,100 participants across 342 sessions. For this event, the focus was a concrete wall in Nongyuan, measuring several meters long, with surface textures and marks.Around 40 participants, including both domestic and international artists attending the art festival, took part. As the initiator, I briefly explained the “rules” of the tracing activity before stepping back and becoming an observer, recording the process. Each participant engaged with the marks in their own way—some more detailed, others more abstract, some incorporating their unique interpretations. After half an hour, the group collectively “created” a tracing artwork, merging various styles into a singular piece.This work aims to explore the dissolution of the artist’s subjectivity and the possibilities of decentralization within the current artistic context. It also touches on the fusion and conflict of aesthetic ideologies, the role of art in intervening in everyday life, and the empowerment of individuals with little to no artistic background through the creation of art.
Yamaoka Sakiko＋Kitayama Seiko Title: Stand/Lay-down Duration: From 15:30 pm until sunset (approximately 18:30 pm)
The rule is simple. When one person is standing, the other must always lie down. Neither takes the initiative. If one of them gradually squats or tries to stand up the other must do the opposite. Always watch the other side and do not overlook their movements. Do not deliberately ignore or refuse to do so. While standing or lying down, any pose is acceptable. You may jump up and down or crawl around. You may sing or laugh. You are free within the limits of standing or lying down.In the 濃園Art Village of the UP-ON project, we did it in a space that looked like it was under construction, with a concrete roof, a terrace space with wooden floors and a lawn.We started at about 14:40 and continued until sunset. We used two chairs. Only at the beginning a lot of audience came, but in the second half there was hardly anyone. Our tension was probably at its highest when people were gone. However, this was partly a playful thing, and we could loosen up as much as we wanted to. The tolerance for this is determined by mutual trust and阿吽の呼吸. Then, by adding another sudden movement, we can tighten it up. It is a delightful moment of surprise. As such, there is a light emotional exchange. And although it is a series of simple actions, the possibilities for various movements are rather endless, and it is thrilling to wrack our brains for them.In the case of a long repetitive performance, the audience may or may not be there for the whole time, they may go and come back, or they may watch for a short time. If they want, they can read books, do homework or take a nap by the side. If it takes place in an art gallery, it will look like a work of art. But if you watch it outdoors, it will feel like you are witnessing two strange animals at play.What was interesting about this performance was the participation of one of the audience members for the last hour. She was a young person who had just graduated from university and it was her first time doing a performance. She said she was interested in ‘time’. At first she was exploring the rules for the two of us, but gradually she understood and sometimes she took the initiative and moved instead of us. how would the performance have looked when it went from one-on-one to one-on-two?As the three of us played with the performance, we talked about ending the performance when the blue of the sky started to fade away, and we enjoyed the gradually fading colour of the sky, and when the sky turned grey, we changed the Stand/Lay-down rule, and we embraced each other, lay down and looked up at the sky, and ended the performance.
Lin YiXing (BEIJING) Title: Swallow Duration: 30 minutes
“Swallow” is a story about how the passive body container exists while undergoing a series of actions such as “disconnection,” “striking,” “cutting,” “stuffing,” and “suturing,” all of which involve the body being subjected to these acts of being ‘xx’.
Tamar Raban & Ernesto Levy (ISRAEL&GREECE) Title： ACT IV: The Home Outside / The Home Inside Duration: 40 minutes
A DeeD by Ernesto Levy (video) and Tamar Raban (performance)
Song Long (XUZHOU) Title: Nightmare Duration: 20 minutes
I lay down on a soft grassy lawn, placing a white mattress beneath me. A white plate rests on my abdomen, rising and falling with my breath. One by one, I place red glass beads into the plate, which then collide and rub against each other in rhythm with the plate’s movements, creating a steady, intensifying sound. Throughout the performance, I control my balance, trying to prevent the beads from falling off. As my breath quickens and my body loses stability, the beads all fall off, marking the end of the performance.
Zheng Que (BEIJING) Title: Current Situation Duration: 30 minutes
Lifting the mesh, a passage appears, flickering in and out of light.I am not here. I leave the space to speak for itself: The dim tunnel hides beneath the belly of the train; lush plants struggle to enjoy the bright gaps; green creeps across the ground, like a stage, like curtains, as footsteps pass over stones, stumbling into the severed green drapes. A new tunnel, where light is a comma, lightly tapping in the center, dividing the highway into two directions; ahead, it is white. I cry at the end—this is the current state.What is the current situation?Action becomes the fragment of an event here: from the moment I found this space, for seven days, this end has been in a state of dramatic change. On day one, it was a pond; on day two, it was a drained mud pit; on day three, an expanded stone quarry… by day seven, it had become a worksite with two massive concrete pools. Yesterday, I couldn’t predict the space of tomorrow; within it, time becomes so clear. The workers’ eight-hour shifts overturned every plan I made, leaving me with nothing but a body constantly bearing change.What is the current situation?The current state is the situation at this moment, in this place. Spatially, I have only the edges; in time, I can only exist at dusk; I have only my body, responding with tears: a strong indication, a weak resistance.The tears fill the pit, and I hope they remain the same as when I first saw them on day one.
Critics ：Chen LiuYi （CHENGDU）， Li Zhen （SHNAGHAI&MACAO）， Li Han （CHENGDU）， Sun XiaoXing （BEIJING）， Shi Ke （HANGZHOU）
Project Director：Zhou Bin Executive Coordinator：Zeng Jie
Working Team Members：Li Yaoyao, Li Zoe, Huang Jiao, Hu Yujie, Ma Yma, Wei Mingyi, Wu Yi, Shui Yuntong, Wang Wenfei, Shao Ye, Little Sheep, Xiu
UP-ON Observers：Chen Mo, Cui Fuli, Deng Le, Fan Maomao, Feng Boyi, Jiang Yijia, Li Zhenhua, Liu Chengying, Tian Meng, Tang Yixiang, Wen Peng, Ye Caibao, Zha Changping, Zhang Lan, Zhang Yi, Zhang Xinyu
HOST ORGANISATION: UP-ON Performance Art ArchiveCO-HOST ORGANISATIONS：A4 Art Museum、Jinyue Children’s Art Museum、NongYuan International Art Village
SUPPORTERS：British Council、Culture Ireland、DONGLAI Art、GaoXiaoHua Art Museum、 Okura International Trade、Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council 、Rheinland-Pfalz MFFKI (Ministry for Family, Women, Culture and Integration)、School of Art and Design, Geely University of China、Vending Machine Studio、WildLandSUPPORT
MEDIA： AIJI Art、ArTanto、ARTDBL、ART MONTHLY、LETSGO、HUMANITIES & ART、Yi Xin Yi Yi、yizhuyishi
THE FOUR POINTS OF THE UP-ON INTERNATIONAL LIVE ART FESTIVAL
UNCOMMERCIALLY
The festival is organized without profit-making purposes, and the staff works without pay, except during artistic activities when they receive subsidies, just like the artists. The financial accounts are made public within two weeks after the festival concludes.
INTERNATIONALIZATION
The festival has been set up as an international platform for professional exchanges since the beginning. Artists worldwide are invited to participate in the festival, including those engaged in live art creation since the 1970s and newcomers full of adventurous spirit.
ACADEMICNATURE
The festival strives to invite the participation of outstanding artists with rich creative experience at home and abroad, facilitates close and professional academic exchanges and sharing, and initiates dialogues and discussions on the most cutting-edge topics of live art on an international scale.
PUBLICITY
During the festival, artists will create works and hold lectures, workshops, and other activities in some art organizations, communities, and universities to promote and enhance public awareness of live art.
UP-ON International Live Art Festival can be held for the twelfth year as a non-profit professional event, thanks to the continuous support of many fellow artists over the years. This includes the dedication of domestic and foreign artists, the dedication of volunteers and working groups, the advice of industry insiders, the financial support of many partner organizations in terms of funding, venues, personnel, etc., and not least, the active participation of the public. UP-ON International Live Art Festival, which grows by eating a hundred meals and enjoying a hundred blessings, knows that it has to walk on thin ice, self-examine with an international vision, and unremittingly improve its professional quality to live up to everyone’s support. The future is long, and it is the same way to move forward.
