GENE｜Exhibition Scene｜Huang Peishan：Remade Scenes
The integration of AI in the creative process has inevitably become a central topic in discussions about Huang Peishan’s new series of works, which this article will delve into. Huang’s interest in the concept of the “artificial” has been longstanding, and it has only intensified over the past five years. With the significant increase in AI productivity, incorporating AI into her creative toolkit was almost inevitable for Huang. This brings forth one of the most intriguing questions: What new creative and conceptual possibilities does the inclusion of this emerging medium bring to her work?
I can't prove any of it #1
80 x 105cm
Archival inkject print
2024
I can't prove any of it #4
90 x 90cm
Archival inkjet print
2024
I.
For a long time, Huang Peishan has been passionate about imagining spaces, often constructing them based on previously seen or simply loved places. The output from AI is purely “artificial”—this tool’s intervention creates the possibility of everything real appearing only as seemingly existent. This generates a path for Huang to engage in imaginative scenario sketching. Using traditional photography and new media tools, she collects or creates materials, while the iterative generation and tuning by AI and new media tools serve as Huang’s means to approach her preset vision when “composing” imagined spaces (and other images). The final images, suspended between fictional imagination and real existence, touch upon a subtle yet pervasive emotion within the viewer. From a phenomenological perspective, everything in the space implies interactions that have occurred or will occur between the object and a certain subject, presenting the activities of the not-specifically-existent space owner within the domain, extending to hints at the real-life scenarios faced by the space owner.
The space in the images becomes a field connecting all possibilities, an intermediary space within the emotional and life narratives of the hypothetical subject within the domain. While constructing imagined spaces, Huang Peishan also constructs a social drama centered around a threshold state (Victor Turner, 1988), endowing the imagined space with the function of a liminal space. The characters in the drama point to all those living in the same era as the artist, seeking similar solace and collective resonance. The concept of liminal space inherently contains an expectation: here, people are no longer constrained by norms and restrictions of groups (including but not limited to gender, race, class, and geographic layers), presenting a state of mutual equality. When such a space emerges in an environment where expectations have not fully materialized, it ultimately manifests as heterotopias (Michel Foucault, 1975), spaces that call out for the realization of these expectations.
Gaming at the table #2
45 x 45cm
Archival inkjet print, mounted on aluminum
2023
II.
The involvement of AI as a tool also brings about a study and questioning of the legitimacy of material and evidence. Huang Peishan’s process of constructing imagined spaces can be summarized as digitizing inspiration extracted from material existence in daily life. Sometimes, she uses a film camera to shoot the required image materials. When the film is converted into digital images, the three-dimensional space and tangible film are transformed into binary codes. The digital image, as material, undergoes a process of deconstruction and reconstruction by AI, providing infinite two-dimensional projections of virtual spaces. Printing works are a means of re-materializing imagined scenarios but also collapse the infinite possibilities of digital space into a singular state of virtual two-dimensional space composed of physical ink dots, forcing Huang to relinquish previous endless choices and possibilities. The material carrying the re-materialized imagination conveys the atmosphere of the printed imagination. For instance, the work "Daily Table Plan" displayed in this exhibition is printed on chiffon, commonly used as clothing material, evoking a sense of intimacy, softness, and privacy with the subject. The semi-transparency and lightness of the material connect the work's existence between reality and imagination—ethereal, elusive, yet tangible, becoming the final step in re-materializing social drama and liminal space.
Huang Peishan’s works retain some “flaws” produced during the digital and re-materialization process. Before using AI as a medium, Huang was deeply engaged in photography (early works had almost no digital post-editing), sculpture, and installation creation. Initially, she firmly believed in the documentary nature of photography and its ability to genuinely reflect reality. The image, as evidence, seemed always valid for photography. However, she soon realized: although the tool is honest, people are not. In this exhibition series, Huang strives to create “seemingly correct” images, defining them as photographs of imagined spaces, which appear to be evidence of the existence of her imagined scenarios. The blurred edges and distorted details in the images can be seen both as flaws and as solid evidence, proving that the spaces in the works never truly existed and that these images precisely require digital editing to achieve “simulation.” Creating on the “artificial” theme becomes Huang Peishan’s response to “questionable authenticity.”
Ikebana, maybe #1
66 x 57cm
Platinum Rag, acrylic sheets
2023
III.
In the image works, the definition and function of evidence switch between the image itself and the details within the image. This is a thought process that Huang Peishan continues to use in most of her recent works. In the installation work "Premeditate an unclear description #1" exhibited this time, the thorns in the fence, commonly used for "protection" and inherently dangerous, are enclosed by a visually less prominent transparent acrylic fence, becoming the protected object. By adjusting the conventional roles of objects in urban space and landscape, the artist hypothesizes: Is the functional definition of real objects/artificial objects/ready-mades indeed reliable and unshakable?
In Huang Peishan’s creations over the past five years, a continuous thread has been imitation and simulation. Previously, discussions focused more on the new material states formed by people's imitation and simulation of the natural environment in urban spaces (such as landscape gardens, garden landscapes, and fountains). Current creations represent a new round of “imitation and simulation” by different tools. For Huang Peishan, imitation and simulation are behaviors with desires for control and expression. When objects seemingly detached from the imitated original are created, a desire for creation is satisfied. This desire simultaneously reflects human creativity and control, and showcases the reliance and resistance humanity faces towards its desires.
Premeditate an unclear description #1
29 x 131 x 131cm
Stainless steel, acrylic
2024
Shilly-shally
68 x 50 x 50cm
Acrylic, stainless steel, glass
2024
Upon encountering Huang Peishan’s works, a more poetic millennial aesthetic atmosphere immediately envelops the viewer, accompanied by an extreme sense of stability. Upon closer analysis, this stability likely stems from Peishan's control over the poetic aesthetic expression of her works, or perhaps from the documentary and precise nature inherent in photography and technological media. For Gen Z and millennial audiences, it brings a sense of familiarity through recognizable images and scenes.
However, this stability, much like the spaces within the works, seems to exist only in fleeting moments, making it difficult to grasp. Whether intentionally or not, the artist pursues a fragile balance that flows within the works, expressing the dialectical entanglement of emotions. Huang continuously disrupts traditional mainstream assumptions, establishes new orders, and then questions the very orders she has established, allowing her works to remain in a state of perpetual openness and possibility.
Schematic of forced landing
64 x 65cm
Platinum Rag, acrylic sheets
2023
Absurdity is allowed
72 x 72cm
Platinum Rag, acrylic sheets
2023
About Artists
Huang Peishan, born in 1994 in Yunnan, China, lives and works in New York and Shanghai. Education: 2018 BA, Internet and New Media, Communication University of China, Beijing, China; 2022 MFA, Mount Royal School of Art (Multidisciplinary Fine Art), Maryland Institute College of Art, MD, USA.
Solo Exhibition: 2024 “Remade Scenes” Gene Gallery, Shanghai, China; 2023 “Ripples and Folds”, Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China; 2023 “Artist’s Table”, Inna Art Space, New York; 2022 “re:replicate”, :iidrr Gallery; 2021 “Paradise”, Ultramontane Gallery, Hangzhou, China.
Recent Group Exhibition: 2024 “If a tree falls in a forest”, San Sheng Art Space, Toronto, Canada; 2024 “Beijing Contemporary Art Expo”, Inna Art Space, Beijing, China; 2024 “Trace of light”, The Parrot, Shanghai, China; 2024 “Egress of the Spirit”, OX Warehouse, Macao, China; 2024 “Dimensions Variable”, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium, Beijing, China; 2024 “The Nostalgic Collections”, Beijing Tree Art Museum, Beijing, China; 2023 “胸中元自有丘壑”, MOU MOU, Beijing, China; 2023 “Untitled Source Youth Art Festival”, Wind H Art Center, Beijing, China; 2023 “Art on Paper New York City”, Inna Art Space, New York, NY; 2023 “Art Shenzhen”, Inna Art Space, Shenzhen, China; 2023 “A Happy Beginning”, LATITUDE Gallery, New York, NY; 2023 “Genesis: A New Generation of Chinese Artists”, Chambers Fine Art, New York, NY; 2023 “Art on Paper”, Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China; 2023 “Ways of seeing”, Museum 54, New York, NY; 2023 “Spring Pin-up Salon”, :iidrr Gallery, New York, NY; 2023 “MZ.25 (My Condolences)”, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
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