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Liang He

Neon

About







The Ant and The Grasshopper


2022 | 3D printed grasshopper head, found clothing, found pickaxe, silicone skin, concrete, wires, gold bar, quarry stone, diamond, petroleum, trading card(lumber, coal, marble) | life-size of an adult




This piece attempts to define the word “play” and confront the accompanying anxiety concerning the ideal of existence for society and individuals. The installation depicts a resident of an imagined utopia; a utopia theorized by Bernard Suits in 1978, in which all needs for instrumental and productivity are satisfied, and the only thing left for humans to do is to play games. When games are fabricated and made-believe as all the activity used to be driven by economic needs and social growth, the distinction between labor and game becomes inexplicit and even interchangeable.



The grasshopper in this project refers to the one in the story of The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop, yet presents another interpretation. Instead of being lazy and shortsighted, this grasshopper resembles someone in disguise playing a game without knowing it, who therefore believe game playing to be the essential life of the grasshopper.








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