A Video Installation by Yung-hsien Chen Title:

FREE FLYING

Statement: 'The historical world, in so far as it is built, organised, and shaped by the conscious activity of thinking subjects, is a realm of mind. But the mind is fully realised and exists in its true form only when it indulges in its proper activity, namely, in art, religion, and philosophy. These domains of culture are, then, the final reality, the province of ultimate truth.' ---Herbert Marcuse, Reason &Revolution (1941)

The French, existentialist philosopher Marcuse neatly encapsulates the Western experience of human existence. I read the quote above once when I was trying to understand Western thought, and it crossed my mind once more when I was on the beach in Brighton, a small seaside city to the south of London in Britain. I was looking over the sea towards the horizon and my attention was caught by the gulls circling over the waves. For once moment they would fly together in order, the next they reeled off in seeming chaos, flapping off in no discernible direction. I wondered then whether they knew where they were going to or whether they were just enjoying the feeling of flying so much that they had forgotten where there was supposed to be a reason for it. As I stood there, staring into the sky, I fell into a mild meditation about the gulls. Where did they come from, why did they fly together in such circles, did they have homes or did they just rest where they landed? Without realising it, I found my mind taking flight with the gulls.

So relaxed I had become, that I lay on my back on the pebbly beach and just stared into the sky.

There was so much to consider here: if I were a bird, what would I feel? How would I move? How would I know when to join one of those flying circles and then break away? As the questions crowded into my mind, I slipped into a deeper meditation in which I began to mentally fly using my own breath and examined the ideas of order and disorder, which gradually became a consideration on the role of freedom in my life.

In this work, Free Flying, I want to invite viewers to participate in the emotions and meditation that I experienced. Obviously, I cannot tell the viewer what to see or feel, but he or she will be able to lie back and stare up at the images. I want people to be able to relax in an arts environment and if all they get from this piece is a moment of relaxation, then I will be happy. However, if viewers want to question themselves about what freedom means in their own lives, that is also good. However, if by lying back and staring into the sky, someone looking at my work finds him or herself breathing evenly, and slowly, without realising it, taking flight to join the gulls in glorious, anarchic freedom, then that will be the best response to the work and the best moment I will be able to offer anyone who takes the time to enjoy my work.