LuYang Delusional Crime and Punishment is a personal nightmare that revolves around desires, sins, and the brain. In this techno music/dance video, the artist Lu Yang takes her 3D-printed, de-gendered cyborg bodies through multiple hells. I find that the part of this work most relevant to our course is the capture of the artist’s body and the imposition of a rendered body onto a fantasy world. Her fabricated body serves as a vessel to question subjectivity and explore the questions of who created our bodies, why our bodies desire, why do these desires translate to sins in many religious systems across the world, and whether everything is just happening in the brain. Images of science and technologies are juxtaposed with imagery of the spiritual. Futuristic, fantastical machines are displayed next to devils, cadavers, and other delusional violence. At some point, the scenes of punishment happen in a surgery room, where the artist’ body violently tremble while its brain opens up, revealing its robotic nature.
I find the overwhelming amount of visceral imagery in this video effective in that it heightens the tension between the scientific and the spiritual, and highlights the artists’ struggle with subjectivity when thinking about the origin of desires and sins. I also like that this video has a great deal of entertainment value. With its dance numbers, upbeat techno music, and fantastical imagery, it provides the satisfying kind of sensory overload. The artist Lu Yang has never resisted the commercial aspect of her work. Her work has always drawn from popular culture and very much adds to it.
CHECK OUT FULL VIDEO: LuYang Delusional Crime and Punishment ( Music by GAMEFACE )