FINE ARTS

Tianchang Gu – Papers, please

by Tianchang Gu

The title of my graduation work comes from the video game of the same name and is the sequel to my thesis “Renens Palace”, an autofiction based on a dystopian future. In this fiction, the “self”, a former immigrant in Europe, becomes an immigration officer. How can writing be transformed into performance? The observed becomes the observer. The formerly oppressed blends into the system and becomes a person of authority. Bureaucratic gestures turn into choreography. Official documents become poems. Administrative motifs and symbols of power turn into visual aesthetics. These are the questions I contemplate during this creative process. All these strangely romanticised and anxiety-inducing elements evoke a reality we don’t always want to confront.