Time：Dec 3 – 23, 2016

Live Performance: 15:30-16:10 on Saturdays

Venue：OCAT Shenzhen Exhibition Hall B

Artists: Li Ran, Tao Hui

First initiated in 2008 by OCAT Shenzhen, “OCAT Performs” is a project held annually in the winter. The theme this year will be “Act”, with the artists Li Ran and Tao Hui invited to take part. Every Saturday from 15:30 to 16:10 over the period of December 3 – 23, live performances will take place in Hall B of OCAT Shenzhen, with all-new works presented: The Extras (by Li Ran) and Emotional Cough (by Tao Hui). With “sound” and “language” serving as forms of performance, and with roles given out and the on-site space molded, the works will enable audience interaction and offer up reflections on the concepts of “live presence” (xianchang) and “performance” (biaoyan).

Li Ran’s video installation The Extras (2016) sets its “stage” in a huge limestone cave called Shihuadong (“Stone Flower Cave”), located in the Fangshan area to the south of Beijing. This has been the backdrop used for the past dozen years or so on Beijing Television’s (BTV) weather forecast. The varying geological folds and the variegated colors artificially projected thereon, along with the post-production sound effects from popular television as well as texts with emotional prompts—all these are brought to the foreground of the stage, and situated in a pre-set, temporary site in waiting. Tao Hui’s Emotional Cough (2016) is based on the routine characterizations of television dramas and literary works, predetermining different degrees of “coughing” for the actors. The three sections—the pre-selection of documents, the on-site “performance” of coughing, and the musical accompaniment—play out a reflection on the maneuverability of the body in performances.