In her practice, Yuqi Wang preferred using black-and-white photography to enhance the effects of light, contrast, and shadow, creating a unique retro atmosphere. This visual technique reduces the distraction of color, allowing the audience to focus more on the deeper meanings and themes conveyed by the image. For example, in the series “Reality and Dreamspace” and “The Sims,” the stark contrasts and shadows emphasize the surreal and dreamlike quality of the scenes, drawing viewers into a contemplative state.

Reality and Dreamspace, A Film by Yuqi Wang

00:03:46, 4K Black and White Video, 2022

Stereo (R L) | 48 kHz

“Reality and Dreamspace” was created using a freely flowing stream-of-consciousness approach, with the entire shooting process spanning a year. This improvisational and self-directed method emphasizes the fluidity of time and non-linear narrative. Deleuze, in “Cinema 2,” argues for the depiction of time through false relations, false movements, and irrational cuts, demonstrating how thought merges with the chaos that provokes it. Yuqi Wang’s “Reality and Dreamspace” embodies this theory, where time is no longer bound by narrative logic but centers on the viewer’s perception and emotions, presenting a fluid and transforming sense of time. This approach disrupts the continuity of traditional cinematic time, guiding the audience to experience a more essential, chaotic, and authentic sense of time.

Still Images from the Film “Reality and Dreamspace”

Yuqi Wang’s artists’ films and moving-image works, especially “Reality and Dreamspace” (2022), “Aspiration” (2023), and “Weightlessness” (2023), are significantly influenced by Maya Deren. She uses dreamlike images and symbolic elements to explore psychological states in extreme environments. These works blur the boundaries between reality and illusion through repeated dream sequences and fluid visual elements, making the audience’s perception the key to understanding and experiencing the pieces.

In the film “Reality and Dreamspace,” extensive use of displacement and jump-cutting techniques connects indistinguishable real and potential images such as the creature, eye, girl, cup, tea, and ruins. This represents different layers of reality and dreamscape, revealing how these symbols shape and manipulate the subject’s mind. These elements guide the audience to delve into their deeper meanings, challenging their inherent understanding of reality. The work explores the boundaries between self and others, showing how these boundaries are continuously reconstructed and challenged in an individual’s psychological development and cognition.