Date of Award
Spring 6-3-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Digital Media
First Advisor
Mark Cetilia
Second Advisor
Shona Kitchen
Third Advisor
Jack Madden
Abstract
I dive into the fields: frequency (sound), wavelengths (light), shapes (conversation): they build connections. What is action without reflection? Now I’m a city drifter. Through art making and dialogue I try to drop the anchor into the futuristic turbulent ocean (of society, speed, and the status quo ). Did I drop it? Not sure. I grew up in the most fast- paced city in China, Shenzhen. I feel pressured there. Do I feel that pressure here? of a precarious, unpredictable future? These questions push me out of the turbulent ocean to grab the present.
There are three stages of time: past, present, and future. But these are always bouncing around like the flow of water; a fading point of flow, the infinite approach, and an eternal past. Hand me the trees that come along, hand me a history book, out and about death suffers the cold, conveying the power inscribed in the heart. Through art making and dialogue, this is what I do to live in the present.
Like frequencies, wavelengths, and shapes, I am influenced by the quickly changing city- scape. Within this change, how do I live in the present and also make connections with the city I live in? I explore this question by resonating the Providence River with my home- town (Chapter 1), digging into the history of the Fox Point neighborhood through making an instrument about Interstate 95 (Chapter 2), and shaping conversations about the tension between being present and making progress (Chapter 3).
How do I find my own way to live without the promise of stability and belonging? How to keep up with the irony of art and fight against capitalism but still operate with- in it? My work is my present. When they are standing, they also bring me experience back to the “present.”
“The smell evokes sadness in the loss of summer’s easy riches, but it also calls up the sharp intensity and heightened sensibility of autumn.”Summer is in the past and autumn is in the future. I am 23 and I will not be 23 again.
Please contact jingfeihu1999@gmail.com for more information.
Recommended Citation
Hu, Jingfei, "Describe the city you live in" (2023). Masters Theses. 1115.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1115
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Art Practice Commons, Audio Arts and Acoustics Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons, Visual Studies Commons
Comments
View exhibition online: Jingfei Hu, Describe The City You Live In