Tofu
Feng Chen
冯晨
Production date
2007
Object Detail
Media
video (colour, sound)
Measurements
7 min 36 sec
Notes
In Tofu, Feng Chen presents us with a precursor to the ‘fake news’ and videos of dubious provenance and veracity so typical of today’s online environment. Thinking about daily life in Hangzhou, he hit on the idea of filming a typical quarrel that draws a crowd. Instead of a road accident or an altercation over the price of goods in the market as the starting point, what could be more absurd that a fight over a bag of bean curd? With one hidden camera at spectator level and another above the street corner like a surveillance camera, Feng organised two performers to stage a fight; one crashes into the other, crushing her bag of tofu. A crowd quickly gathers, and every passer-by offers an opinion. Feng Chen’s work seems to be a ‘slice of life’ but is actually an orchestrated version of reality, suggesting that we are all very easily manipulated in a climate of fabricated outrage.
Accession number
2007.030