Artistic statement

Ⅰ Title: Final Countdown

 

Ⅱ Symbols in artistic work

1. Countdown



The countdown we show in this work represents that every moment we are under the threat of terrorism. Maybe it is the countdown of next attack.

 

2. Milk Bottle

The milk bottle is a symbol of daily life. But inside hides the TATP, meaning danger is surrounding us in the seemingly peaceful daily life. We are all under threat of terrorism.

The countdown and milk bottle symbolize that people may attacked by terrorism anytime anywhere.

 

3. The burned shoe

The burned shoe is function for hiding the PIR sensor. And it per se symbolizes the dead terrorist. As we all know, most times the terrorist is suicide bomb, he or she risk life to attack and kill others. Their actions are preposterous and contradiction.

4. The blinking red light on the main bomb

The blinking red light on the main bomb symbolizes the running blood of victims.

Ⅲ Inspiration for this work

The terrorism is the inspiration for this work.  "Terror" comes from the Latin verb terrere meaning "to frighten". The terror cimbricus was a panic and state of emergency in Rome in response to the approach of warriors of the Cimbri tribe in 105 BC. The Jacobins cited this precedent when imposing a Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. After the Jacobins lost power, the word "terrorist" became a term of abuse. Although the Reign of Terror was imposed by a government, in modern times "terrorism" usually refers to the killing of innocent people by a private group in such a way as to create a media spectacle. This meaning can be traced back to Sergey Nechayev, who described himself as a "terrorist". Nechayev founded the Russian terrorist group "People's Retribution" (Народная расправа) in 1869.

In November 2004, a United Nations Secretary General report described terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act".

There are too many terrorism in the world, and the number of victims and the suicides are startling.

Our artistic idea is based on this fact, and the setting of this artistic work is terrorism around daily life.

Ⅳ Principle

There are some blood footprints and a burned shoe in a conspicuous place, insides the shoe is a PIR sensor, which can detects movement. Over the shoe, there is a screen shows countdown and some other dates, places, and numbers. When people see the burned shoe and the screen, they would be curious about them and want to know what happened. Then they walk close towards this shoe. When they are half a meter away from the shoe, the sensor would detect their motions and trigger to the milk bottle and screen, leading to the explosion of milk bottle and broadcast of bomb explosion video. We have prepared ten footages of explosion, and would broadcast them randomly. The following figure shows the detailed process.