Video, 16′ 00′′
2020-2023

At the apex of a new solar activity cycle, after the eclipse during the summer solstice, the members of a family transform into a soap, a plastic bag, a simulated plant, and an electric plug — objects from their domestic environment. While the electronic grid is disrupted by the solar storm.

The film explores tensions between nearly static spaces, depicting a series of irregular structures from digital models to the electronic system: networks, databases, QR codes, planetary matter, cosmic cycles, and artificial environments.

It recreates the eclipse of the summer solstice in 2020 and invokes the deadly relationship between solar activity and electronic systems to touch on the uncertainties in both the digital and physical worlds. In the pre-Internet era, an electronic system collapse caused by a massive solar storm had occurred. Such an event could be catastrophic for today’s world, which heavily relies on electronics, and still remains unpredictable.

With computer-generated monologues, the film enters an experience of displacement, like an incurable disease. It features the neighborhoods of the Capital Belt of Beijing, where the artist lived during the COVID lockdown, and engages performance of friends, neighbors, and workers. The audience can scan the QR codes in the film to access additional screen spaces, including a short notice, a digital perfume, and a digital watch. Although the virtual world lacks scent, the watch remains static.

The English title, “Saros,” refers to a certain period of time used to predict the cycle of eclipses, where the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to similar corresponding positions, so that almost the same eclipses will occur again.