Transcendental Beasts

Manifesto:
Artists all must return to craftsmanship.
There is no essential difference between the
artist and the artisan. The artist is an exalted
artisan.

The limitation is not the jail of creation,

inversely it helps artists during the making of
art sometimes.

Against the Orientalism in

contemporary art, people from different
countries should depict their own culture by
themselves not by others.

Nothing is useless.

All the creatures are monsters to each

other.
 The whole idea starts from the
conversation with Junnan Lusha in a caf
shop. We talked about how this universe is
formed and where are all the creatures come
from. We shared our opinions with each other
and found out some new ideas.
 My artwork called Transcendental Beasts.
It is discussing how this universe is formed
and how this world is consisted of by using
Chinese philosophy like Taoism,
Confucianism; Oriental Mythology, and
ancient Geography.

The whole concept started from the idea of

monsters. I was interested in the monsters at
the very beginning and I started to look at into
a book called The Classic of Mountains and
Seas.

I found this ancient Chinese book is not

talking about Chinese geography, creatures
and culture. It is a description of the whole
world during that ancient
time. I started to focus on how the world was
like thousands of years ago. After a chat with
Junnan Lusha, especially talking about his
study of formation of the universe, I found
there are many coincidence and similarity of
describing how this universe is formed, ended
and in loop between East and West culture and
recordings.

We agreed to corporate with each other to

make an artwork to show the whole universe
by two sides. One side is mine, we can say
volume A, it is the light side or we can say
Yang (Chinese philosophy and East
Mythology) to depict this world.

In Chinese philosophy, the shape of earth is

square, the shape of universe or the heaven is
circle. Without compasses and ruler, you cant
draw square and circle. ()
When you put Compasses () and ruler ()
these two words together, it will become a
Chinese phrase means order ().
 Taoists believe there is an order or rule in
the nature or universe, everything obeys it. My
work is a sculpture of a square wood box
represent the rectangle earth. There are some
3D maps of ancient world surround the square
earth. These 3D maps are based on an ancient
map called Kunyu Wanguo Quantu from Ming
Dynasty.

Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, 1601

This map is super accurate compared to

other ancient maps during that time. On the
Wikipedia, it says this map is created by
Matteo Ricci. But nowadays, more and more
scholars found this map is not Matteo Riccis
work. In Li Zhao-Liangs book, The Secret of
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu - Chinese mapped the
world, he states that the map was created
before Matteo Riccis time.
 If this is true, it means Chinese people had
travelled around the whole world long time
ago. It completely meets the idea of
considering The classic of Mountains and Seas
as the evidence of early Chinese people had
travelled around the whole world.

There are some small figures of creatures

from this book located on the 3D map with
black strings binding them. These black strings
represent gravity, it bounds all of us on this
planet. Just like in the Christopher Nolans
film, Interstellar, 2014, the only way that
human could evolve to the next stage is getting
the rid of the bound of gravity.
The title of this work is transcendental beasts.
Like my manifesto says, when human sees a
beast, he might think this beasts is a monster;
but when the beast sees a human, he might
think this human is a monster, so everyone is
monster. Just like these monster figures
walking around the whole earth above-board,
decently. We all are the monsters living in this
world, we are the light side, we define this
world, define everything. Without our
imagination and observation, this world no
longer exist. We (all the creatures, not just
human) are living in the world of definition
and cognizance. Because of these definitions
and cognizance, we all are monsters.

The square earth is not solid and the inside

of the square is empty. It is the dark inside.
Darkness or chaos creates this world,
everything begins with darkness.

In TaoTe Ching, it says the Tao produced

one; one produced two; two produced three;
three produced all things. All things leave
behind them the obscurity (out of which they
have come), and go forward to embrace the
brightness (into which they have emerged),
while they are harmonized by the breath of
vacancy. (
)
 Just like this square earth, brightness
outside ( Yang), darkness inside ( Yin).
Yin and Yang combine together which formed
everything. Junnans metaphysical paintings
and installations would surround my square
earth as the border circle.The name of
Junnans artwork is Moonchild. He is the view
of dark side ( Yin). Junnans work and my
work could project the frame of universe, and
Junnans work symbolises the dark space
embrace the earth. It shows the idea of square
earth, circle universe which means the order or
the rule exist in this world and will never be
changed or vanished.

The whole art work shows the darkness

produced the brightness, and the brightness
will go back to darkness. This is a spooky
projection with the whole world between the
spiritual realm and the physical realm.