RUIZHI LIU
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10: Eraser ｜Image of Lifespan 2020
When people talk about time, they largely mean the past or the future. To my mind, the notion of the “image of lifespan” is a discussion about time. With respect to the notion of time, Buddhism emphasizes living in the moment. We should not be obsessed with the past or fantasized about the future; rather, we should live in the present. Men of lifespan, to my mind, refer to us who have a duration of life. As a result of that, we must undergo a process from birth to death. Despite the inevitability of birth and death for human beings, everyone would leave behind different traces in their life. These traces, large or small, record people’s mediocrity or vindication in history. All of them are left behind by people who have finished their entire journey of life.
In this project, I used the shots of traces to illustrate my understanding of time, life and death. To that end, I chose to record a performance-art-fashioned action. I used a piece of paper, an eraser and a pencil. Every day I would write a number on the paper and then erase it. The traces left on the paper, as well as the eraser and its crumbs, would be shot.
In such an action, I found that the eraser shrank in size day by day while the volume of crumbs grew larger and larger, and the traces of pencil and eraser decreased gradually. All the three traces underwent a process from nothing to everything and then to nothing — just like a person’s life. Our lifespan (eraser) gradually shortens, the traces we leave behind (eraser and pencil marks) gain depth, and the other trace that we leave behind (eraser crumbs) gains in volume. It is indisputable that everyone would leave behind unique, precious traces in this life.