Qiming Liu (39.998595, 116.507515): Sunbathing · Anthropometry

Artist’s statement

This performance investigates the relationship between the emergence of an artwork and the particular time and space of its location. In Caochangdi village, where the performance took place, we bought a thermometer, an air-humidity meter, weighing scales and all the drinks we could find in the local supermarket. By drinking them, exercising and sunbathing, we precisely recorded changes in time, temperature, humidity and bodily measurements.

At the same time, the process was transmitted through WeChat, converting the live situation into digital form while making the digital images part of the live situation. Through this digital transmission, we experienced and observed the distortions and characteristics of time and space.

The accuracy of the temperatures, humidity levels and changes in body weight recorded here depended entirely on the quality of the products supplied by that supermarket.

The creation and existence of any artwork are inseparable from objective factors such as the particular place, time, temperature and humidity of its making. People are shaped by their environment. Made on the urban–rural fringe of Beijing, this work, Sunbathing, and all its unknown manifestations and outcomes are inseparable from those circumstances. Giving material form to thought is the work’s central exploration. (The numbers in the title are geographical latitude.)