artificial tear, glass, wood (online event launched in 2019 tother with VISION)
When is the last time you cried? I cried yesterday morning. A partner left our project in a sudden. Though it is just an obstacle at work, I dropped down a few tears after hanging off the call. Only glad that she didn’t notice in the phone. Tear is the shameless body fluid in the dark. A kid cries for survival; Adult weeps out weakness.
Tears are secretions, symptoms and signs. We cry out of pain or joy, love and loss, sometimes for an onion. It rolls down the cheeks, leaving eyes red and trails of stains. Regardless the causes, tear generates from three layers in the tear film:
Lipid, aqueous and mucins.
I tried to understand these layers of sadness, while crying every day for a month in 2015. I brought bottles of tear to laboratories and analyzed what inside. It was dried out, burnt, reacted with chemicals and turned into different colors. I couldn’t tell which was more fatiguing, crying it out or breaking it down.
After the month, I got my recipe:
Water: 97.56% Protein: 7905.9ug/ml PH: 7.62 Glucose: 0 mg/ml Na+ : 151.6mM K+ : 19.5mM
I made a big jar of my tear by mixing all the chemicals accordingly and an installation pumping the tear out. inviting people to touch it.
I wondered, would I feel the touch on my cheeks?
A visitor in the exhibition once asked me, are you sad?
I figured, we might feel the same.
I want to invite you to take a bottle my tear and the rules are simple:
Send me a 30-second long video of yourself tearing down in exchange for one bottle of the artificial tear I mixed. I have thirty bottles.
Here is my email: tearbottles@voidvision.com
Waiting for you.
Xin Liu
上次你哭是什么时候?我昨天早上哭了。一个合作伙伴突然退出,虽然是工作上的困扰,挂了电话后还是掉了眼泪。只能庆幸没有在电话里被人发现。眼泪是黑暗中羞耻的液体。小孩哭嚷是生存的保障,成人的泪却浸着软弱。
眼泪的三重身份在分泌物,症状和符号之间游荡。我们因喜悦,爱情或是分离落泪,但也因一颗洋葱哭泣。它滚过脸颊,留下红红的眼睛和一道道泪痕。不论因由,眼泪都经泪液三层生成:
脂质,水样和黏蛋白。
我曾尝试去了解悲伤,在2015年的一个月里每天都逼着自己哭。我会带着装满10ml眼泪的瓶子去实验室,测量里面的成份。我的眼泪被烘干水分,被微电火花引燃,和不同化学物质反应变成各种颜色…… 哭出眼泪和分解眼泪,我也分不清到底哪个更令我精疲力极。
一个月后,我得到了眼泪的配方:
水: 97.56% 蛋白质: 7905.9ug/ml 酸碱度: 7.62 糖分: 0 mg/ml 钠离子 : 151.6mM 钾离子 : 19.5mM
将这些化合物混合,我配比了一桶的“我的眼泪”并在展览的装置里抽出,邀请观众碰触。
我幻想过,当他们碰到我的配比眼泪时,我的脸颊会有感觉吗?
曾有一个观众问我:你难过吗?
我想,大家都一样吧。
我想送你一瓶我的眼泪,或者说我们交换一下。规则很简单:
发送给我一个你落泪的视频,30秒以上,我会把盛着我的眼泪的瓶子寄给你。一共有三十瓶。
这是我的邮箱:tearbottles@voidvision.com
等你来信。
刘昕