2013 Paradox Spiral

Paradox Spiral is Zong Cheng’s multiple sensory experiment that aims to explore the paradox and complexity of human language and behavior. By observing the contradiction of human language and human behavior, I found that it is quite common phenomenon for people to provide a paradox to let others find the real meaning behind their words instead of giving a direct answer, in both USA and China. This video installation consists of two huge fans facing each other projecting the faces of a young man and woman, perfume and stinky cheese, which experiments with the impact of various sensory media such as smell, wind, image and sound on the audience. Actors and actresses are asked to speak the lines that they wrote in the following sequence: “The words you want to praise a person with smile. The words you want to mock a person with smile. The words you want to blame a person with angry looking. The words you want to compliment a person with angry looking. The words you want to extol a person without facial expression. The words you want to insult a person without facial expression.”