"Out of Place" from Leung Mee Ping - the Art, its Setting & Space

Leung mee ping focuses her video art work “Out of Place” on drifters circling in different Asian countries. The art work is parallel with her research background, which is issued based on ethic, community and memories of human living situation. Her study is also related her research on globalization. The art work “Out of Place” is actually matched to Ms. Leung’s research on the downside of globalization. It induced people to think about our social environment by looking into our society status.  

Inside the video, I sense sorrow while the drifters walking on the street. Many people are clean, dressing well, smiling, driving their cars passing these drifters. Such a huge contrast suddenly catch everyone to figure out what have been gone wrong. 

Although the video is without subtitle and capturing things we possibly experienced, it reminds us to rethink once more the problem of big cities in globalization. We still need to consider the minority of the society.

The setting of the video seem to have an idea. There are fabric screens hung at 90^o angles to each other. Screen may be placed in the middle of the room and you need to move yourself to avoid the screens. It makes me feel like I am the drifter and walking on the street whilst I need to avoid pedestrian. The setting of screens may hidden its meaning. At least, I view myself connected with the drifter.

 Some video installation may use technology to make it fancy, deliberately hiding something, changing the colour of the images and so on. “Out of Place” is somehow showing raw video footage. It does not involve afterwards adjustment. It rather gives the actual impression of the problem of drifter in large cities. 

In the exhibition, the room is small to show all the video but the artist utilizes the advantage of projectors so 8 videos can be shown at the same time in just a tiny room. 

Video Installation

In week5, we have lessons on video installation. It can be recorded in various types of videos. In terms of spacing, it can be fixed or changeable. Video normally reflects real objects as it captures the real things generally.

 

There are also video with afterwards effect adding. It can only capture part of the whole object and create areas for imagination. It can also display everything to provide a full picture. Personally, I think video art with something hidden. I rather like something miserable and unpredictable.

 

However, the way of recording can make difference of the final result of displaying. It can adjust zooming, contrast, lighting, black/white, rotation and so go. Thus, there are different ways of expression of the art. These difference may be little but sometimes can make significant effects.

 

While I am also doing an artist who utilizes video a lot, it would be good for me to focus more on understanding more video installation.

 

Someone may think that video always come together with description, script, subtitle, it is not the case of “Out of Place” from Leung Mee Ping. It can have no sound, it can simply recording someone behind for a few minutes.

Background of Leung Mee Ping

I searched some background information of the artist, Leung Mee Ping. According to Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, installation, mix-media, public art and community art are her creative practicing. She concerns about the ethic, community and human living situation interwined with her research of visual culture and globalization.

Once I look into her Biography, "Out of Place", the work I focused to talk about, is highly related to her study actually. 

Below is the description of "Out of Place".

As quite often that artist would choose a constant style to work on. They also select objects familiar with them. It is understandable that Ms Leung used result of globalization as the theme of her art works. 

One Day trip to visit an exhibition

I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art in Tsim Sha Tsui. It has been an exciting day as I saw different types of art works inside the same place. This is an advantage to visit a museum than individual workshop.

There are different types of exhibition including pictures of local history, drawing of 4 typical flowers in chinese culture and video installation. 

Among all exhibitions, I am particularly interested of an art work from artist Leung Mee Ping inside the event of "All Are Guests - Homecoming" 

The work from Ms Leung is called "Out of Place". She traveled to different Asian cities including Bangkok (Thailand), Kuala Lumper (Malaysia), Hong Kong, Tokyo (Japan), Varanasi (India), Beijing (China), Shenzhen (China) and Manlia (Philippe).

She used video to record city drifters in these cities and bring a message to the audience that the scene behind urbanisation somehow making someone's life tougher.  

It does inspire me to rethink what has been done wrong to the society and development. 

The art is created through video recording. There isn't any description and subtitle to the video. Ms Leung just walked behind these city drifters and recorded their loneliness.  

Hong Kong Heritage Museum Exhibition on 17 June 

It was my first time to have a lesson outside classroom at university. It is exciting for me. The first gallery we visited was "Walking in The Dreams". The Gallery includes art works from 13 artists.

I particularly like the works below from Ordinary Cavemen using carton box to construct his dream house. Unlike typical dream houses which are normally gorgeous, a big garden, swimming pool, awesome interior design and so on. Cavemen made this dream house tiny, packed and messy which is quite different from people generally think about. 

Cavemen brings people back to reality. We might fancy and aim high but we might not get what we want all the time. I think Cavemen might want to emphasis this message to the audience that dream is dream and the real world is just different. We need to face the reality somehow. 

This is another art work I like. Hundreds of chinese and western styled toys put on the floor. This isnt much information of this art work but it definitely recalled my memory of my children.  I remember the good memory when I was a child. I do think that life as a child pass more happily. As a kid, there is not much to worry about. However, I need to worry about my study, career, relationship with girlfriend and so on. I rather prefer a simple life.



Overall, it is quite an interesting gallery to understand how others dream about.

Impressionism, Cubism & Surrealism

Among these three style of art, Impressionism, Cubism & Surrealism, I prefer impressionism over the other two. The characteristic of impressionism emphasis on light, ordinary subject matter, human experience, perception and sometimes unusual visual angles.




It may not be painted clearly but the overall atmosphere is closed to our actual life. Artist may see a scene and paint it using his/her little perception and experience.

Cubism

It is also interesting that cubism art work may break up objects and reassemble with abstraction. It provides multiple viewpoints to project the object in more ways.



Some art works may be easy to locate the object.

Some may not be....


Surrealism

It is like a dream, illogical, unreal, strange and so on. It is somehow provide fun to audience.

What is art?

Art can be in many forms including painting, visual, sound, drama, photography. I think that art can bring fun and inspire people.

Art sometimes represent a culture and a group of people. For example, the art in India is different from western culture. Indian art tends to be more colorful and often relate back to daily living and Buddhism.
 


Definition of Contemporary Art
- the art work is produced at the present period in time
- Modern art
- artists still alive

However, due to authority, art works may not be recognized as "Art" sometimes. Ironically, an artist can create a simple object and say it is an art, whilst normal people may not receive the same recognition.