Strange stories of le-50, Solo exhibition by Hoho Lin

Artist's Statement

Chen Chien-Te, Academian of Academia Sinica as well as former director of National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, once told me in an interview, “if we can develop the technology to make photons smaller than 10−50eV/c2, we will be able to see God.” Suddenly, the image of Stephen Chow and Buddha flashed in my mind, but in just a few seconds, it became Joey Wong’s face which lingered…it must be the face of Siu-sin instead.

If one day, science allows us to see explainable gods and ghosts, what will it be like? I am anticipating it, yet scared. However, whether in science or mythology, we are either far from being able to “see” them, or just unaware of their existence. Maybe when we enter right the magnetic field, we’ll run into them. But how should we react then? Should we greet them? Run away? Or play dead?

That night, I closed my eyes feeling strange. Before I fell asleep, I recalled another night which was too humid and warm for me to fall asleep. Half awake, I felt something like a bird flapping next to my ear. My ear, even my cheek, was trembling because of the fast vibration. I wasn’t sure what that was, and my body was filled with fear of sinking and falling. I struggled to get up, but couldn’t move at all. In the end, I turned over with all my strength. Just like a rubber band breaks, I could finally lift up my heavy eyelids. Although I was soaking wet, I managed to breathe.

It was July. The next day I walked in the street, muddle-headed, still fearing and despising the crowd. I put on my ear phones: radio host started talking about Qiao Niang-one of the stories in Liaozhai Zhiyi. The storyteller quoted various classics, which was really interesting.

Public safety, food safety and social security issues appear one after another. We live a modern life like what the poor lower class lived in ancient times; humans are not like humans, ghosts are not like ghosts. In such a tumultuous time, somehow humans and ghosts have fallen in love with each other. Storyteller under the footbridge voices unfair situations in social groups on his smartphone. Life is still hard as always, and it seems like we’re back to the past. Some hint of sadness is deepened; make-up keeps fading away, blurring too. We already forgot what bothered us for a long time.

My back is prickling, but my moping chest never forgets to remind me to keep pressing the shutter button, at the edge of the ghost island 400 years later.