ELEGY

FP - INVITATION FOR THE EXHIBITION

FINAL EDIT - ESCAPE VELOCITY

There exists a fourth dimension in today’s China – the speed of development and change. The speed does not merely transform China - it becomes China. It is not only a phenomenon itself; it is also the relationship linking all facets of the evolution of contemporary China, be it society, culture, politics and even nature.  Reality, and in fact the only reality today in China lies in the speed of the transit.

On this planet, the escape velocity is 11.2 kilometers per second. Within this speed our perception of the world is deemed to be normal. Is the double-digit rate of economic growth in China within the boundary of this watershed speed or far beyond it?   I would like to find out.  I would like to see this speed of transit. In order to reach a similar speed I jumped into a car and asked the driver to drive as fast as possible wherever he could, down high streets, through residential blocks, up on motorways, across rural areas and so on.

After hours of transit, I no longer felt the speed. I locked myself into the world of speed and transit, physically and mentally.  I could hear the noise of the engine and the sound of the wind. I could feel the bumps in the road, but not the sense of the speed any longer. Speed became part of me and transformed to an entrance, through which I penetrated into an unknown reality where everything was distorted. I continuously pressed the shutter. In every fraction of a second, everything was blurred.