Polymerization #25

I was born in 1993, and by the time I became aware of my surroundings, there was already a Macintosh computer in my home. I used it to draw pictures. I remember feeling dissatisfied in kindergarten, when painting with real paints, wondering why I couldn’t undo mistakes the way I could on a computer. Since then, digital devices have always been close to me. Because of this, the sensation of erasing actions, trying repeatedly, and selecting only successful outcomes has become deeply ingrained in me. Even in real life, I tend to simulate actions before carrying them out, and it feels unnatural not to do so. In fact, while writing this text, I have used the Control + Z shortcut dozens of times.

How should we live with the fact that we can simulate almost everything? From my savings ten years from now to the itinerary of a future trip, I feel unable to avoid simulating every aspect of my surroundings. It is as if I am researching spoilers for my own life. Perhaps this is a curse cast by the tech industry.

I want to make positive use of this curse through painting. The ability to simulate the production process on a computer should not be used merely to avoid failure or increase efficiency. Instead, I want to inscribe into painting the sensation of time being rewound by Control + Z. I want to entangle forward-moving time and backward-moving time within a single pictorial surface. When the layered images simulated on a computer are subjected to the compression process of painting, the areas without pigment are no longer blank spaces; they become sites where the action of “erasure” has occurred. Painting seems capable of accommodating such operations. I want to generate images that can only be made by someone who has internalized Control + Z.

When I stop painting and look at my finished work, there are increasing moments when I myself can no longer immediately understand the process by which the form came into being. I feel that such paintings may be the ones in which my intention has truly been activated—but I’m not entirely sure.