YUAN LIN

  • Home
  • Projects
    • Translation Project
    • A Body of Work
    • Mocumentaries
    • Dual Life
    • Giving and Receiving
    • Chart of Happiness
    • I see nothing but trees
    • Conceptual Attempts
    • Ramp Address
    • Home for Shame
    • A Study of Watercolor
    • WePod
  • Residencies
    • Toffia, Italy
    • Pedvale, Latvia
    • Porto, Portugal
    • Gorna Lipnitsa, Bulgaria
    • Torreles de Foix, Spain
  • Film Photography
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
  • Sound
  • Video
  • Fine Art
    • Sculpture
    • Drawing
    • Printmaking
    • Ceramics
  • Theatre
    • Scenic Painting
    • Design
    • Doodles
  • Graphic Design
  • About
  • Home
  • Projects
    • Translation Project
    • A Body of Work
    • Mocumentaries
    • Dual Life
    • Giving and Receiving
    • Chart of Happiness
    • I see nothing but trees
    • Conceptual Attempts
    • Ramp Address
    • Home for Shame
    • A Study of Watercolor
    • WePod
  • Residencies
    • Toffia, Italy
    • Pedvale, Latvia
    • Porto, Portugal
    • Gorna Lipnitsa, Bulgaria
    • Torreles de Foix, Spain
  • Film Photography
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
  • Sound
  • Video
  • Fine Art
    • Sculpture
    • Drawing
    • Printmaking
    • Ceramics
  • Theatre
    • Scenic Painting
    • Design
    • Doodles
  • Graphic Design
  • About

Video

Sleigh Talk
4'32"
2022

Conversation
7'15"
2016 - 2017

Entrance
​2'38"
2016 - 2017

Not That   2'32"
​2017

In the process of creating this video, I realized that I didn't want anybody to know what was the raw material, as well as what was going on within myself in this period of my life. So after layers and layers of effects, what was left for the audience (if there is one) to experience became abstract shapes moving in grayscale and heavily distorted sound recordings.
​An attempt to explain the process:
1. I built geometric forms out of cereal boxes and put random shit from my studio inside the objects.
2. I wrote down my thoughts on the objects that I just made.
3. I videotaped myself playing with the objects and saying the words that I wrote on the objects.
​4. I built a video with the footage, as well as past recordings including construction machinery in Boston, bus announcements in Shanghai dialect, people shutting door in front of my studio, etc.
​5. I built a scroll based on the timeline in Adobe Premiere.
6. I cut out the video blocks and added drawings and text in the audio blocks. The drawings and text are what I think respond to the audio.
7. I showed the video and the scroll in a critique and didn't tell anything about this process and people got mad at me.

Liminal   1'22"
​2016

​Constantly switching lives between China and the U.S., I became aware of the simultaneous quality of things that happen around the world. The idea of simultaneity inspired me to do this split-screen piece, where I put my dual life on either side of one screen.

Sometimes the two sides sync as the center line gets less recognizable, and the next moment they grow into utterly different images. This occasional shift between assimilation and distinction is a symbol of my experience as an unsettled  traveler throughout the past 4 years.

The Hands Series
2016

I sat through a friend’s piano practice session one day and drew her moving hands at various moments of the piece. With the imagery of hands stacked up, I created videos based on my past recordings. The videos are projected onto the walls, the ceiling, and the floor so that viewers are immersed in a fusion of aural and visual elements. 

Sources of sound in this series include:

-Crowd walking in a subway station in Shanghai
-Rope pulling ship in a harbor in Chicago
-Evening bells in my neighborhood in Shanghai
-Me painting Mathers Theater floor with a roller

-Chopin Ballade No. 3 played by Haoruo Zhang
Diving    1'06"
Breathing     22"
Shutting    58"
Rolling    1'00“
Pushing    44"

The Rhythm series
2016

Rhythm I
​
48"
I paired sound clips with photos that I took. All of the photos here are what I think the "textures" of the sound.
Rhythm II
​
39"
The moving image in this piece is generated by the sound composition that I made.

Animation

I've Been Here
1'31"
​2016

This video was projected, looped, on the wall above the Rubendall Recital Hall entrance on the opening night of Eidolon, the 2016 thesis show at Dickinson College.

Everyday
​
29"
​2012

The renderings in this video are done from memory. It is the record of  my first two months at Dickinson College. Interestingly, this video and the one above mark the beginning and the end of my college life.