M3NG ART
Hi, I'm Meng Li. I like many things, including stretching my life, drinking hot water, and human. My real job is making and launching www.Clipular.com.
Peek. Poke. Talk (strangers only)
Strangers, do not have eye contact; shadows, do.
This project is inspired by how strangers sit on benches in public spaces in New York City. We noticed that most strangers sit far from one another, and avoid looking at each other, let along having conversations. Is that the social and cultural norm between strangers? Is it against the human nature that we are social animals? When social animals live in the city, the rule has to be changed? What if the norm is broken… by a bench? How would strangers react to the norm breaker, behaviorally and emotionally ? How would strangers interact to each other then? To answer those questions, we created a bench, in fact, more than a bench - an intervention in the public space - Strangers, do not have eye contacts on the bench; their shadows do. When two people sit on this bench, with a space between them, one shadow interaction video is triggered in which the sitters’ shadows seem to come alive, proceeding to flirt, poke, and interact with each other, for example, doing strange things like faux-attack with a drill. If they sit closer to each other, then nothing will happen. The shadows will not act on their own, because if the sitters already feel comfortable sitting close, they don’t need this “ice breaker”. The interaction is not between the human and the shadow, but between the two strangers. The shadow interactions sometimes surprise people, sometimes make them smile, sometimes get them think, sometimes make them sad. Here is how others talk about Peek Poke Talk “Peek, poke, talk is a simple conversation aid for shy strangers.” by Alexis Madriga, from Wired Magazine. “A delightful bench that encourages interaction between strangers” by Sarah Nelson, a founding member of Electronic Social Club [ ESC ]
Peek Poke Talk @ “chocolate & i” Group Show, Chelsae, New York City, 2010. 
Peek Poke Talk @ D.U.M.B.O, under Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn, 2009. 
Peek Poke Talk @ Electronic Social Club and Tisch School of the Arts, New York City,
Gazelena #1 and #2
This concept is extended in the framework of feminist theory, where it can deal with how men look at women, how women look at themselves and other women, and the effects surrounding this. It is all about the Gaze, the male gaze. I found this to be very enticing given that we all became voyeurs both willingly and unknowingly. Some would argue that when we portrayed Gazelena in public we provoked an environment of entrapment. But we use television as a window into the worlds of other, willingly and unknowingly. We can choose to look away but we often can’t. In my view Voyeurism has bled over into everyday displays of attention seeking, away from and in parallel with sexual pleasure and continues to converge on a growing segment of ages. With the surveillance cameras, Gazelena, the observed became the observer, the voyeur. More than that, she exposed what she observed to the world. One question which came up was the ever shifting roles of Power, power between the Man and the Woman, between the Voyeur and the obsessively observed, the exhibitionist and the onlookers. Who has the power? Does having a camera give Gazelena the Power? The power to capture your gaze and show to the world? The Power to entice you to look, as an exhibitionist? Who has the real Power? Men? Women? Both? I would say, power shifts, when the boobs made eye contacts with you.
Gazelena #1
Gazelena #2
Gazelena will be in Beijing (my home town for the first time) Sep 19th - Oct 10th , Shanghai Oct 22th - Nov 7 , Guangzhou in China . Gazelena #2 “目”光交错 在中国北京.Object transformer by forget art @ 大声展 2010
Collaborated with Allistar Peters. Thanks to Laura Moore and Jada Wu.
Waiting : Episode II The Body — Nothing Happens
I have to admit, I hate waiting. However, living in the city, it is inevitable to wait. It drove me crazy when I waited for a phone call from a special person, or a package, or even sometimes the sunrise… So I break waiting down, cut it into pieces, and reconstruct it to exam this banal but overlooked human behavior.
I captured the micro-expressions while the self-absorbed waiters were mind drifting at the subway stations in New York city. Most of the micro-expressions are less than 1 second, but full of emotions and stories. So I prolonged those 1 second to 10 seconds here. The portrait looks like a photograph, but if you wait, you will discover the smile or a resignation. (please refer to the poem below) Capturing the “waiters” requires me to wait. The process of studying waiting and discovering the fresh and interesting thing from the banal waiting requires me to wait, and viewing this piece requires me to wait. So after the process of waiting while doing this project, I became a total “waiter”. Through waiting, I developed a relationship with these strangers in the footage. So I was inspired to write a poem:
Nothing happens
To the mind drifters
Your gaze loses the focus,
Faraway, faraway.
You are waiting, but not waiting.
Your finger follows your thought, across your chin,
Slowly, slowly…
Suddenly, tipping away,
I know I know,
You got inspired!
Your lips follow your thought,
Tight, tight…
You’re biting them,
Suddenly, they separate,
And a long sigh follows,
I know, you tried hard already,
I am sorry.
You stand still,
Still,
Still…
Suddenly, the tip of your lips up,
I know, it was sweet.
All happened, all gone,
In the past 1/10 second.
Advisor: Kevin Slavin
Coexist
Coexist addresses man’s desire to interfere, thus turning a perfect world into his perfect existence. The cockroach, the subject in thrall, is old and is chased away. But for the life-of-time they roamed the grounds, yet we try to SPLAT them away. Maybe we should coexist.
Coexist at Siggraph Aisa Art Gallery — Adaptation, Yokohoma, 2009 Artist statement: Human intervention with the implementation of technology, science and the need to have a dominate human species, along with the eradication and tailoring of nature’s children – plants and animals, sometimes lead to unpredictable and seemingly negative results, causing more disdain to mankind’s lifestyle if not survival. Most species adapt only for their survival. Humans adapt not simply for survival, but also for social acceptance, wealth and prosperity. Humankind wants other species to adapt or fit into his ever-changing model of the world, or must get out of our way. They must die! But what happens if they don’t die? Or what will happen if we are forced to adapt to exist in their world? To address this question we decided to create an interactive behavior experiment on how humans react to the (dramatic) intrusion of other species deemed unsuitable to coexist in our habitat. For this we choose the cockroach. Fact: Cockroaches are real survivors. They have been around for around 300 million years and can be found all over the world, either with humans or in a natural environment. Over 5,000 species have been identified. Cockroaches are very adaptive… (Source: newsroom.co.nz 21 July 1999 from a press release by the Y2K Readiness Commission) Interaction scenarios: A pile of gloves will be presented at the entrance. To be relatively comfortable to interact with the roaches, you are required to wear a pair of glove. The initial state shows only one cockroach, black, crawling, attempting participants to smack on it. After being hit, it’s populating to 5 cockroaches, and the mother cockroach turns red. Being hit again will make it grow to a giant one. Hitting it will cause wings to grow out of its shell, so it will fly. Participants’ reaction and behavior to the unexpected and uncontrollable cockroach populating, enlarging, morphing will be recorded , played back next to the installation with 30 second delay, so the participates can review even though they may not expect so, to provoke more thoughts on human adaptation. We use technology to make it interactive, however, the best story may be that we don’t “interact”—which is to kill/smack it – with the cockroaches. We coexist. Technical statement: Close proximity infra-red tracking: we will use infra-red camera tracking to determine the location of the hand, and filtered sound to indicate smacking the wall. The infra-red camera can track the hand position by tracking the infra-red emitter attached on the gloves. The sound of smacking the wall will be picked up by the microphone to determine if the hand is hitting onto the wall or not. Projection: We will use two projectors to throw the video onto a corner with the extension of two pieces of wall. Space: enclosed. List of equipment: Projectors: Two short throw 4K projectors. to illustrate the details of the roaches’ behavior. Hanging from the ceiling, 2 meters above ground. Projecting to a corner with two walls. Lighting: The only light is from the projection. As more and more cockroaches being generated, the room is becoming darker and darker. When the white background is fully covered by too many cockroaches, the whole room will become too dark to breath. Audio: 4 Channel Speakers A computer Time for installation: 4 hours Collaborated with Allistar Peters, Rendall Koski. External Link: http://coexistproject.com/
The Wall
After thousands of virtual clicks, real wall broken.
When you land onto the website, you will see this inside a webcam streaming window: A brick wall, dead thick, covering the whole window, no room to breathe, no hole to peep into…
A kinetic performance of a wrecking ball hitting the wall is controlled at thousands of internet users’ finger tips. By clicking the button on the website, every click will push the wrecking ball move closer to the wall, 10 clicks (either 10 people from the internet clicking, or 1 person obsessively clicking 10 times) will generate a “hit” action. The performance was live streamed through an IP camera to the internet in Dec 2008, with 17030 clicks.
Collaborated with Sunghun Kim, Elim Cheng.
Pillow Recall
“The usual enemies of escape were jailers.” — C. S. Lewis
The scene is initially set in an office of a pillow making factory. The coffee on the desk is still warm. The person who works here is missing. As you walk in, you may notice some seemingly normal objects are mysterious after interacting with them. Things can “talk” to you, the telephone rings, when you pick up, you hear the ocean’s sound; the drawers half open, the file cabinet filled with smooth sand, covering the texts on the document; the things jumping out of the toaster are sandals, etc. The more you interact with the objects, the more curious you may become. Piles of pillows with the “Recall” label sits next to the window, with the cotton struggling to stand up, climb out. The cotton gradually becomes cloud, flying out of the room, higher and higher, until you can’t reach. Then you find a ladder…
“Pillow Recall” at ITP, Tisch School of the Arts. 2008
“Untitled” - A movable feast.
“Untitled”— The Frame Project for Wiesbaden Museum, Germany, 2008 Frames on the street can provide a special perspective for the familiar settings in downtown wiesbaden. The scene happens to be inside the frame from your angle could be anything, so you define the name of the work. While you are gazing into the frame, you may also form someone else’s scene.
Collaborated with Elim Cheng, Wiesbaden Museum, Scholz & Volkmer.
“Dear husband”
A clock alarms before your lady gets cranky…
“Dear Husband” - Interactive Menstrual Clock project is to answer a question I had, how the machine and data intervene into our private and intimate relationship between couples. This clock can display your lady’s menstrual cycle, and alarm when her period comes as she may get ready to be cranky. Use at your own risk.
Collaborated with Sandra Dávila.
Operators, Strangers, and Directions
I have been living in NYC for a few years, and it is far from my hometown - Beijing. From a F.O.B. (fresh off the boat) who constantly asks for directions on the streets, to a “walking google map” who has been constantly asked for directions, I have realized something absurd and developed a strong curiosity around asking for directions. So I decided to ask for directions for the sake of understanding me and the strangers in the city. It is a urban intervention experiment in new york city, asking strangers to give me their personal information, including signatures, phone numbers; then call them to ask them to give me directiong. then ask if i could follow them along their way. see how people react to my requests, where the fine line is in terms of the personal interaction between strangers, the trust issues. Key Words : stranger, mobile, phone, telephony, trust, safety, new york city
