What to See
Guo Tianyi
郭天意
Production date
2012
Object Detail
Media
video (black and white, silent), pencil on paper
Measurements
video 6 min 30 sec
drawings, each 85.5 x 66 cm
drawings, each 85.5 x 66 cm
Notes
The video developed from Guo Tianyi’s initial drawings (also named What to See), was created in three separate phases. The first step was the immensely time-consuming process of creating the detailed drawings themselves; then from the drawings Guo Tianyi created a stop-frame animation, with erasures and re-drawings; and finally he made new drawings copied from selected still frames in the animation. As he drew, he continually stopped to photograph the process of making each drawing, a ritual that lasted for forty-five days and resulted in two thousand, eight hundred and seventy-four separate image files: the artist said the recording process was like writing a diary. Finally, Guo used these digital image files as the basis for another animation, also titled What to See. Languid and dreamy, the original scene of the woodland, with its serried rows of winter trees, shifts and fades into fog, rain and ice, before slowly unfolding with lush foliage that transforms the landscape from winter to glorious summer. The slow erasures, the marks made by the artist’s fingers as he blurs and rubs his drawing, the dribbles of water that run down the surface of the paper picking up the dark pigment of the graphite: all this documentation of the artist’s actions creates a ‘shan shui’ landscape in motion.
The final phase in this body of work was a process of reconstruction. Guo Tianyi made four new drawings, but this time the images were copied from still screenshots of the video, and included the softening of the pencil and the marks of erasure. Each drawing took between one and two months to complete. The artist says his intention was to ‘present the same thing in two different ways.’ From making drawings that look uncannily like photographs, Guo Tianyi has used photography — and digital animation — as a way of reinventing the practice of drawing.
The final phase in this body of work was a process of reconstruction. Guo Tianyi made four new drawings, but this time the images were copied from still screenshots of the video, and included the softening of the pencil and the marks of erasure. Each drawing took between one and two months to complete. The artist says his intention was to ‘present the same thing in two different ways.’ From making drawings that look uncannily like photographs, Guo Tianyi has used photography — and digital animation — as a way of reinventing the practice of drawing.
Accession number
2012.023