XYZ — Youyi Echo Yan

Evolution on the XYZ-axis
2023
Single channel video (Color, sound), headsets, pine, plywood, resin
5:26 min. Dimensions Variable
Watch the video here

Exhibition View: Mycelia, Commons Gallery at New York University (New York, 2023)

“Poetry leads to the same place as all forms of eroticism — to the blending and fusion of separate objects. It leads us to eternity, it leads us to death, and through death to continuity. Poetry is eternity; the sun matched with the sea.”
― Georges Bataille, Erotism

In Georges Bataille's The Tears of Eros, he delineates the distinction between humans and animals through the lens of erotic desire.The foreseeability of human mortality ignites a profound fear, ultimately giving rise to desire. In this paradigm, life itself becomes a product of this inherent human longing, establishing a congruence between death and eroticism. There’s a connection between the upright position and human mind.

Looking at the evolution of human ancestors from crawling to upright walking, the transition from fish fins to tetrapod limbs was characterized by a wrist-like structure that was able to lift itself from the ground. This allowed aquatic creatures to evolve into terrestrial animals and led to the emergence of humans. During the evolutionary process, our aquatic ancestors pushed themselves off the ground and out of the horizontal and evolved into creatures characterized by verticality and uprightness.

The upright position, symbolizing dominance, stands in contrast to the submissive posture of crawling. This dynamic, deeply embedded in our evolutionary history, manifests itself as an inherent aspect of human sexuality. In the process of human evolution, characterized by verticality, there is the shift from the x-axis to the y-axis. This also raises an question: is there another axis of evolution? what might z-axis evolution involve?

In the digital realm, exploration of objects in the XYZ axis becomes a tool for discovering new perspectives and dimensions. The video installation serves as a visual exploration into the inherent absurdities within the vertical evolution of humanity. In the digital realm, the XYZ axis takes on tangible form, offering a representation that surpasses conventional visuals. This piece intricately navigates the spatial dimensions of human desire, weaving a narrative through the body's metamorphosis and the symbiotic relation of death and desire. The installation features a screen displaying the video, which is mounted inside a low pedestal facing upward. This spatial arrangement enhances viewers' awareness of their verticality. Adjacent to the video, a tentacle-like wooden sculpture serves as a physical extension of the animated forms, reaching out to function as a headset holder.

Throughout the video, a prose-poem narration interrogates the absurdities embedded in humanity's vertical evolution. I narrated the piece in Chongqing dialect, a southern Chinese language native to my birthplace.

当我尝试弯下腰
When I try to bend down
以四足前进时
To move forward on all fours
我发现了
I discovered
直立的姿势
The intimate confrontation
和肛门之间的亲密对峙
between the anus and he upright position

从前我们总是在X轴上做直线运动
we were always moving in a linear motion on the x-axis
（像是大家总是赶着要去哪）
(like everyone was always rushing to get somewhere)
从前我们也匍匐在地
We were also prostrate on the ground
让水平的身躯穿越空间
Let the horizontal body slide cross the space

蛇是X轴的主人
Snakes are the masters of the X-axis
它们毫不迟疑地快速穿越
They didn't hesitate to move quickly
充满诱惑光芒的金色树林之门
through the glowing golden gates of the woods
（也可能是因为那时候大家都没有衣服，
(or maybe it was because everyone had no clothes on
滑溜溜的）
and was slippery back then)

从前我们也在横向的空间里游动
We also swam in horizontal space
让水平的身体划过过空气
Let our horizontal body cut through the air
鱼是受X轴的支配的
Fish are governed by the X-axis
它们从废墟里一头窜进另一个废墟
They scurried from one ruin to another

我们寻找肛门与人的心灵相遇的地方
We look for the place where our anuses meets our minds

水平动物的肛门和头脑在同一个x轴
The anus and the mind of a horizontal animal are on the same x-axis
直立动物的肛门和头脑在同一个y轴
The anus and the mind of a vertical animal are on the same y-axis

然后我们立起了身
Then we stood up
（似乎是一个不必要的动作）
(seems like an unnecessary action)
或许因为某个东西在上面
Maybe because something was up there
把我们拽了起来
pulling us up

是来自上面的爱抚
It was the caress from the above
让我们勃起
That made us erect
(那样的爱抚就像你往牛肉上轻轻抹上蒜泥）
(That caress is like when you gently rub garlic paste on raw beef)

征服使我们成为直立的生命
Conquest makes us upright beings

我们上升
We rise
我们变热
We get hot
我们与其他上升并发热的朋友做爱
We make love to other friends who also rise and heat up
有的朋友是冷血动物
Some of our friends are cold-blooded
但是我也想要亲吻他们冰凉的嘴唇
But I want to kiss their cold lips too
撕开它们宝石色的壳或鳞片
And tear open their jewel-colored shells or scales

再后来我们丢弃了多余的东西
And then later, we discarded the excess
变成了垂直的肉棍
Turned into vertical sticks of flesh

我们丢弃了多余的肢体
We discarded our extra limbs
这样就能够以双脚站立
So that we could stand on two feet
我们失去了皮毛
We lost our fur
这样我就能看清楚你的脸
So that I could see your face again
你的皱眉和肩上的咬痕不会再被皮毛遮盖
Your frown and the bite marks on your shoulders are no longer covered by fur
你也变得更脆弱
And you became fragile again

然后我们变成这样
So we end up like this

我们最终只剩下勃起的人形
We end up with an erect human form

其他的东西也跟着我们一起
We become vertical
变得垂直
And everything else follows us

空间被我们驯养得变得垂直
Space is domesticated by us to become vertical
我们在这个新的地形里移动
We move through this new landscape

我们上升
We rise
我们变热
We become hot
在漩涡中唯一永恒的生物
The only eternal creature in the vortex
不断吞噬着自己的尾巴
keeps swallowing its own tail
可折叠的生物摆弄着自己的骨架
The collapsible creature fiddles with its own skeleton
用自己的软膜包裹自己
Wrapping itself in its own soft membrane

但是
But
无论在哪
Wherever we are
死亡都是横向的
Death is horizontal
水平是人死后的形状
Horizontal is the shape of a human being after death
也是我们诞生之前的形状
It is also the shape we had before we were born

当我尝试弯下腰
When I try to bend down
以四足前进时
To move forward on all fours
我发现了
I discovered
直立的姿势
The intimate confrontation
和肛门之间的亲密对峙
between the anus and he upright position
这是我们
This is the shape we had
诞生之前的形状
before we were born

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