Baoxin Liao ~ 恍 Sinekdoĥo

Baoxin Liao's " Tales Heard in the Chronicles of Light when Transmissions Whispered Our Stories" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 1, 2024 as one of 38 AEROPONIC ACTS of CHAMELEON ORBIT curated by Elisa Giuliani & Giulia Crispiani.

Here you will find the documentation of Baoxin Liao's presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by  Bethany Crawford and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.

恍 Sinekdoĥo

Baoxin Liao's question: Why are you out wandering the streets in the middle of the night? Are you sure you will not marry? Even though for visa?

Baoxin's introduction: It’s 4 A.M. Nasruddin leaves the tavern and walks the town aimlessly. A policeman stops him. “Why are you out wandering the streets in the middle of the night?” “Sir,” replies Nasruddin, “if I knew the answer to that question, I would have been home hours ago!”

Bethany's report: The performance begins with a performer lying on stage under a sheer white veil, evoking a dreamlike suspension. Other performers surround the laying performer with laptops, while one dressed in black paces near the sleeping figure, carefully arranging the veil before clipping it to a screen that hangs just out of reach. As the veil is stretched to become a projection screen, the scene shifts from the physical to the spectral, with images of the sleeping performer projected onto the screen, creating an uncanny doubling effect—a ghostly, refracted version of the self.

The soundscape intensifies the performance's sense of displacement, with minimalist beats, cymbals, and shaking bells underscoring moments of disjuncture between the performer and their projected image. These projections appear and disappear, achieving clarity only when aligned with the performer's physical body, highlighting the tension between presence and absence. A pulsing light and a ticking sound evoke a heartbeat or clock, adding to the building tension, while the projected image multiplies and refracts, giving the impression of a life lived in fragments, seen through the fractured lens of memory or dream.

This restless exchange between the performer and their spectral images suggests a struggle for alignment, an attempt to reconcile the disjointed parts of a self that never quite synchronize. The projected images shift in scale, sometimes looming large, sometimes fading into opacity, creating a kaleidoscopic interplay between the performer’s physical presence and her mediated doubles. The effect is that of a hybrid, chimera-like creature—a self that is constantly shifting, caught between realms of fantasy and reality, as sonic waves crash in the background, suggesting the perpetual motion and instability of identity.

The performance closes on an ambiguous note. A torchlight appears, like a rising sun, as if signaling the end of a dream. A disembodied voice asks, “Can you hear me?” and “Do you want to come closer?” before the performer in black joins the one in white, and others lie down beside them. The piece leaves us with a final image of multiplicity—not just of self, but of collective presence, blending the boundaries between individual and other, reality and dream.

Antonia Majaca: Antonia responds by working from associations, the first reference that came to her mind was the Shroud of Turin—the faint imprint of Christ, which is almost invisible until seen in a photographic negative. This relic serves as a form of material witness, but only through mediation. It led her to think about all those bodies that are shrouded and wrapped, whose faces and images we will never see, whose imprints remain forever buried.

Another association was Goya's famous Black Paintings. When he moved into his house, he painted these dark, intense scenes directly onto the walls, which were later transferred onto canvas. These works convey a haunting intimacy with the environment, darkness, and a space that feels like a dreamscape or even a nightmare—a realm close to madness and the unshareable. These were the two associations that this work evoked for Antonia.

Inti Guerrero: Inti reflects that there was a wonderfully informal aspect to this piece, allowing a lightness and physical engagement with the moving image. It transformed the moving image into a new cinematic experience, rooted in theater, yet drawing on references from Japanese traditions, projections, and more.

The subject matter was beautiful, especially the moment the perfomer lifted the sheet, bridging the themes of life and death. It immediately transported Inti back to the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, particularly his Cemetery of Splendour, with its phantasmagoric exploration of personal memories. There’s a similar quality here—a way of navigating the subconscious that resonates with Southeast Asian approaches.

It also made Inti think about the connection between the dead body and textiles. In Madagascar, for example, textiles are specifically crafted to wrap the dead. This performance felt like the unwrapping of a memory—a way to reveal and re-engage with the past.

The horizontal image of the woman and the multiplicity of characters interacting within her body reminded Inti of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by the Vietnamese-American author Ocean Vuong. The chapters dedicated to his mother and grandmother contain iconography that evokes his memories of his grandmother—each memory like a nocturnal, ghostly image.

The ghostly subject in this work is rich and multi-layered. Inti suggests exploring the exhibition Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers, which examines the importance of ghosts in different cosmologies. Inti reflects that piece engages deeply with ghostly matters and stories, emphasizing their significance within the art installation.

Ramon Amaro: Ramon remarks that he maybe deviating slightly, but he has to ask—does Bobo find themself thinking a lot? There’s clearly so much happening here. What we saw feels like only a fragment of a much larger trajectory, almost like there’s an entire canon waiting to emerge from this work. The stage was performing as much as Bobo was performing, creating a dynamic interaction.

Watching Bobo communicate with their team, seeing the interplay between textiles and bodies, and experiencing those fantastic collisions of physical and projected images Ramon comments that this created a space that felt deeply intimate, yet also vulnerable. Perhaps, we’re not quite ready for this form of cinema yet. But rather than an anxiety, this moment of uncertainty can be reframed as an act of generosity. A helpful approach might be to take one piece of this work and develop it further, allowing other parts to emerge in future projects. By doing so, would be inviting people to join them on this unfolding journey.

Ramon comments that this is not to say that the piece wasn’t stunning as it is. But the richness and durability of Bobo’s vision deserve space to fully live and breathe. He advises Bobo to give themself the same grace to let each part settle and find its own expression in what Bobo is communicating.

About Baoxin Liao (Bobo)