We all have memories, often from childhood, that feel so vivid they seem like yesterday. Yet when we ask our parents about it, it turns out that’s not what happened. Unlike hard drives, our memories are fluid, and they change over time, as is our perception of what’s happening in the world around us.
This middle-ground between the real and the illusory is where we find the work Through the Fissures of Perception by Ke Qin. The short film is divided into five parts that flit between visions that could be real, such as colourful playground equipment, to what’s clearly illusory, as fish swim past the same architecture designed for children’s play, now shrunk down to a small scale.
It’s a film of fragments: ripples on the surface of the water, lightning, and an outdoor fountain bubbling away. Water features heavily within the film, and we can draw parallels to how it represents the fluidity of time and memory. In another sequence, the scene splits with subtle differences: on the left, a woman looks out to sea, and on the right, the image is replicated but blurred. Preceding this, we are poolside under blue skies on the left, but on the right, it’s stormier, and we can see an elephant.
It’s as if each scene were a fleeting memory, but start to piece them all together and you build up a narrative in your mind. It’s similar to how a dream only comes together when you wake up and piece the fragments together. Ke Qin wants us to draw our own narrative from these vignettes, whether that’s enjoying the trippy visuals from an aesthetic point of view or something more profound.
The work can represent something more vivid than simply dreaming, as many people suffer from hallucinations, and it can also be a side effect of certain medications. It can prevent us from distinguishing between real and dream worlds, though many cultures have questioned whether the dream world is the real one. It also asks us to question the stigma around those who see visions and a different slice of reality.
The titular “through the fissures” suggests that these cracks in perception as moments to ponder the nature of our reality, and many great thinkers have had revelatory moments in their dreams. Artists are known for thinking differently to inspire their creativity, and this work is an encouragement for us to do the same.
As her work evolves, I would like to see the films become longer and transformed into more immersive dreamscapes, whether that be through sculptural installations, virtual reality, or augmented reality. There’s a lot more for Ke Qin to explore in this world between worlds, and we’ve only had a glimpse of it through a fissure.
Written by Tabish Khan
