Chris Lin – Bye!

Walter Faber knew about the advantages of his camera: In Volker Schlöndorff's film "Homo Faber" based on Max Frisch's novel; he is permanently filming his surroundings and even the persons in close contact with him. Through the camera's lens the world seems controllable and unemotional. Faber builds up a distance to his environment and — to himself. Later, by watching his recordings, he realizes that he missed every moment of the past present, he missed his life. His memories are conserved on the magnetic tapes.

Chris Lin knows about the dilemma of filming. His work reflects the effect of filming on the spectators which are at the same time the protagonists.

We become spectators of our own lives. Sometime in the previous century, scientists theorized that memories are not fixed entities, but instead they are recontextualized and changed by the present moment. Therefore, each time we recall the past, the more detached we are from the actual event. The role of spectator allows us to be removed from the minutiae and nuances of everyday life, providing space for reassessment of values and reconciliation with the past. - Chris Lin

Chris Lin covers films that are playing a role in his life. His perspective changes: The former viewer now becomes the protagonist.

"Bye!" is a performance installation based on a 3 second scene from William Friedkin's 1971 film "The French Connection" in which the French mobster escapes from the detective on a subway train. The viewers are the detectives; I am the mobster. - Chris Lin

The limits between subject and object begin to blur. The characters change their place and move from the audience onto the stage. But the illusion of the original film is torpedoed at first sight by a ridiculous setting. Similarity with the original seems not to be intended. Cardboard accessories reveal the remake. But the setting is, like a memory, rebuilt and recontextualized. Short-lived and transitory like cardboard, memories cannot be fixed. They undergo a permanent change, depending on time and person who believes looking back. Like Homo Faber — as Walter Faber is called by his ex-wife because of his affinity to restlessly fabricate something — Chris Lin re-constructs his own reality and identity, booth based on memory or the illusion of what this could be.

CHRIS LIN is an installation and video artist based in Chicago. He received his MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago majoring in Fiber and Material Studies. He is the co-founder and video editor at Good Stuff House, an artist's collaborative and virtual exhibition venue. Chris also plays the ukulele, teaches drawing, and tells stories. Chris Lin's website: http://www.cardboardish.com/.

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