LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

LiQin Tan explained to DoN the concept behind Primitive Level Signals, the spectacular multi-media exhibit at Dalet Gallery in Old City, “It’s an animation installation, it all uses 3D animation software to create the animations and we also have animation stills. Printed directly on the wood the prints use technology that is new, a new way to print on different materials, ridged materials, normally it must be much softer.  Now you can use hard wood or metal, aluminum…”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

LiQin Tan explained, “Now I can print on all kinds of materials, not just paper. Also, the concept behind this is Chinese Taoism, what this means is that the Chinese have always dealt with five elements: fire, water, metal, earth and wood. All of the elements consistent with Nature is where the idea came from. Also my idea combines the ideas of the North American Indian people with ideas like the dream-catcher.”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

The gallery is filled with fascinating creations from the mind of LiQin Tan, there are prints on animal skin stretched in frames with industrial clamps paired with an abstract video on a glossy monitor mounted on the wall above the dream-catcher. “Using spirit levels as a signal to describe a natural phenomenon in humans, where human brain development is an equalized procedure.  The competing concepts of the brain, whether the battle of the brain’s size versus it’s intellectual capacity , or of it’s technological versus spiritual side, are always kept in equalibrium” –  Dalet Gallery art card.

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

The gallery displays five pairings of prints on wood with accompanying video like these three above to represent the five Taoist elements: fire, water, metal, earth and wood. The animation stills printed on the panels of wood are ethereal, with Max Ernst-like abstract images that evoking dreams, mind storms, underwater mysteries and the being lost in the deep forest.  The animations are mind-blowing in complexity and creativity.  In the front gallery is a series of monitors, tangles all in wires and cables, with an animated lava flow ebbing back and forth using video game technology realness to the point that the piece looks hot from melted stone.

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

“In this dream-catcher you see here, the animal skins, I made them by myself, is from the North American Indian people as well, they’re used in a way to represent their culture. I stole it from them. In the animation is the biggest stone, the spiritual stone.” said LiQin Tan. In the picture above is a shot, a still if you will, of a large dream-catcher, the animal hide stretched taut in the primitive circular frame using the same cruel clamps, the installation has two of them. From both sides of the darkened gallery four video projectors shined animations onto the stretched skins, the light shining through like when you hold a flashlight to the web on your hand.  The animation includes dancing figures, “The Miao people, a small group of people in China, are represented by the dressed dancers…I mixed the cultures, I call it digital primitivism, using digital technology to make it primitive.”  The effect is deeply spiritual, connecting with memories, archetypes, cultural resonance and internally rooted thoughts and ideals.

“You can see that in the animation, but I also used the American Indian skills because I made the animal skins by myself. Using primitive skills, using calf skin, this kind of skin the procedure is called primitive, so I used the primitive skills to make them digital.  And I used digital skills to make primitive art.”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery

“It’s a two-way work, digital art with old society and modern society, it’s multi-faceted.  I like the North American Indian culture a lot. I did a lot of research in Canada and I made a lot of multimedia pieces about North American Indian culture, so it’s about how during the day I teach digital animation but I have North American Indian culture in my brain. So the idea came very easy, very natural especially when it connected with Chinese Taoism, I did a lot of research, I’m not a religious person but I read a lot of philosophy and a lot of the research is organized in this idea.”

LiQin Tan, Primitive Level Signals at Dalet Gallery through June 23rd.

Written and photographed by DoN

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