As part of our new series of moving-image premieres, Nowness Experiments, we welcome ChillChill to the screen.
The Shanghai-based artist takes us on a trip to reality via the internet, exploring the boundaries between reality and fiction, and asks: who is the architect of these boundaries?
The 40-minute film is a new work made in 2020 by ChillChill, the longest to date by the Shanghai-based artist, and contains the viewpoints of people from various social classes. Its title, Brain In A Vat, is inspired by the chapter title of the same name in philosopher Hilary Putnam’s Reason, Truth, and History. Tropes of everyday banalities that are central to the artist’s work appear, alongside scenes from the artist’s past work. From the harrowing depiction of China’s rapid urbanization and the detrimental effects towards its working class and migrant workers, as seen in Brave New World, to symbols of present day movements — Mobikes and the Occupy Movement — taken from Shaman, Brain In A Vat is the artist’s continuous effort to explore the boundaries between reality and fiction. If the world experienced by the brain is in fact a kind of simulated reality generated by a computer, can the brain realise that it lives in virtual reality separate from itself?
Read more on: https://www.nowness.asia/series/nowness-experiments/brain-in-a-vat-chillchill
Discover the series: https://www.nowness.asia/series/nowness-experiments
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