Featured in this CD-Rom is 'Tianyuan Space Station', a digital photographic work by Li Tianyuan.

Tianyuan Space Station was exhibited for an art and science exhibition in Beijing, 2000. It is a series of unusual self-portraits by employing cameras and microscopes, with technological assistance provided by the Institute of Remote Sensing and the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In each triptych, the first picture was shot from a satellite 800 kilometers above the earth at a designated time; the second at ground level by an ordinary camera; and the third with a microscope that enlarges by 500 times some bodily substance—tears, for example. By putting the three pictures together, Li says, he intends to convey a sense of the frailty of human beings in the sweep of nature.

This work was also exhibited under the theme Performing the Self at ICP in Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China at the International Center of Photography and the Asia Society and Museum (2004).

Li Tianyuan's photographic works reflect the emergence of hybrid new conceptions of selfhood and personal identity in contemporary China.
Access level

Onsite

Location code
CD.000228
Publication/Creation date

2000

Video format

CD-ROM

No of copies

1

Content type

artwork documentation

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This item is covered by one or more copyrights. It is available for research only or use within Hong Kong’s fair dealing rules. Please do not copy, re-use or reproduce this item without the permission of the copyright holder.

Tianyuan Space Station - media work by Li Tianyuan, 李天元作品 - 《天元空間沾》