Video and Text Installation

基因髮廊的紅房子
Genetic Salon - Red Room

A spotlight, Projector, Speaker, 8 flashlights, Labels, Resin hand sculpture, Wigs, Badge of Genetic Salon, Soil
2021

Solo Exhibition: Skylight Gallery, KHiO, Oslo.
Photos taken by KUNSTDOK Istvan Virag


《基因髮廊的紅房子》 是一件影像與文字裝置作品,呈現一段半虛構的千年歷史。作品從 2018 年第一個基因編輯人類嬰兒的誕生開始,經過 2020 年全球新冠肺炎大流行,再延伸至 3018 年 Genetic Salon 的想像誕生,建構出一條以基因工程作為文明核心敘事的未來時間線。

裝置被安排成一個紅色而不穩定的檔案空間。文字、標籤、假髮、樹脂手部雕塑、泥土、手電筒、聲音與影像,被放置成一間未來機構留下的殘跡。展場充滿危險、緊迫與暫時性的氣氛;有些物件滿佈灰塵,有些已經支離破碎,彷彿觀眾進入了一個破敗的博物館展示、一個犯罪現場,或者一處來自失敗未來的考古遺址。

觀眾需要使用手電筒在空間中觀看。當投影儀沒有運作時,房間成為一個需要被搜尋的場域,觀眾必須靠近碎片、標籤與殘留物,嘗試拼湊 Genetic Salon 的歷史。當投影儀播放影像時,房間又立即轉化成放映室,而紅色光線本身也成為影像經驗的一部分。裝置中的錄像來自 《基因髮廊-等候室》 的片段。

透過這個不穩定的環境,《基因髮廊的紅房子》 思考未來如何在真正到來之前已經被檔案化。作品追問:科技承諾如何變成歷史神話?改善、優化與身體重新設計的想像,又會如何以廢墟的形式留下來?如果 Genetic Salon 曾經承諾身體可以像髮型一樣被修剪與改造,那麼紅房子展示的就是這個承諾成為歷史、警告與殘骸之後所剩下的東西。

(展場的錄像乃是《基因髮廊-等候室》的短片)


Genetic Salon – Red Room is a video and text installation that stages a fragment of a semi-fictional thousand-year history. Beginning with the birth of the first gene-edited human babies in 2018, moving through the global pandemic in 2020, and extending towards the imagined emergence of Genetic Salon in 3018, the work constructs a speculative timeline in which genetic engineering becomes one of civilisation’s central narratives.

The installation takes the form of a red, unstable archive. Texts, labels, wigs, resin hand sculptures, soil, flashlights, sound, and video are arranged as traces from a future institution that has already begun to fall apart. The room feels urgent, dangerous, and temporary. Some objects appear dusty, broken, or abandoned, as if the audience has entered a ruined museum display, a crime scene, or an archaeological site from a future that has failed.

The audience is asked to navigate the space with flashlights. When the projector is not operating, the room becomes a site of searching: viewers must look closely at fragments, labels, and residues in order to piece together the story of Genetic Salon. When the video is projected, the room shifts into a screening space, and the red atmosphere becomes part of the image itself. The video shown in the installation is an excerpt from Genetic Salon – Waiting Room.

Through this unstable environment, Genetic Salon – Red Room reflects on how futures are archived before they fully arrive. The work asks how technological promises become historical myths, and how ideas of improvement, optimisation, and bodily redesign might survive as ruins. If Genetic Salon once promised that the body could be edited as easily as a hairstyle, the Red Room presents what remains after that promise has become history, warning, and debris.






Solo Exhibition: Genetic Salon - Red Room, K4 Gallery, Oslo.
Photos taken by KUNSTDOK Tor Simen Ulstein


Mark