从性别不明的超级英雄《子宫战士》（2013）到八比特像素怀旧风的《癌宝宝》（2014），电子游戏美学和游戏性在本次展览中反复出现。《忿怒金刚核》（2011）同样展现了艺术家对此的偏好，在展厅二层的装置之间，观众可以利用增强现实技术“玩转”展览，这些手法的运用也颠覆了美术馆惯常的功能属性。
在《陆扬妄想曼陀罗》（2015）和《陆扬妄想罪与罚》（2016）中，陆扬基于自己的形象构建了一个由暴力与控制交织成的唯吾独尊的世界，并依照她对于深度脑部刺激（DBS）医疗技术的兴趣创造了一个圣灵光环状的脑部立体定位器械概念，它可以通过引发边缘系统短路造成宗教式的幻觉。艺术家认为，二十一世纪自我身份的核心正是来自对心灵与精神机制的探索以及我们将这一过程视觉化的能力。在通常由其本人 “出演” 的影像中，艺术家解构自己的身份，并在不同的作品中幻化为新的肉身：一只巨大的风筝，一个无性仿生人，亦或一位“陆扬地狱”大门前的守护者。
伴随着仿佛灵魂出窍般的诡谲声音，整个展览在一个驱魔装置中推向高潮，这件新作与音乐人、表演者合作完成，并得到了上海华东师范大学心理与认知科学学院的支持。而陆扬这位经常用顽皮与怪诞的幽默挑战常规接受限度的艺术家也以这件作品指出了一个极具讨论意义的问题，即艺术和艺术机构在社会中所扮演的具有宣泄和净化情感作用的角色。
作为陆扬在国内非盈利机构的首次展览，也是木木美术馆首个中国艺术家个展，此次展览将集中呈现陆扬最知名的艺术作品及其艺术实践的新方向。
Lu Yang: Encephalon Heaven is a glimpse into the hypnotic world of the artist, comprising three new projects and a constellation of previous works, including sculpture, video, installation, and video games. A leading figure among a young generation of new media artists, Lu’s creative practice often satirizes efforts to demystify human experience through scientific theory, dismantling them with comedic fluency in the language of popular culture. With a breadth of influences from hip hop to Goa trance, punk, gothic, and glam rock street styles, gaming, anime, and Otaku sensibilities, Lu’s multisensory environments reflect our globalized culture and the shifting understandings of China and beyond.
Presented on the first floor, Electromagnetic Brainology (2017) represents a new direction in Lu’s video work. Unfolding within a heretical temple built into the central hall, the work incorporates motion sensor technology and a soundtrack contributed by acclaimed Japanese producer invisible manners (インビジブル・マナーズ), weaving together the seemingly disparate rituals of religious ceremony and nightlife hedonism.
The action and aesthetic of gaming recurs throughout the exhibition, from the adventures of Lu’s gender-curious superhero Uterus Man (2013), to the 8-bit nostalgia of Cancer Baby (2014). Affinities to the gaming world are equally present in Wrathful King Kong Core (2011), and a sculptural installation on the second floor inviting viewers to ‘play’ using augmented reality.
Regularly featuring in her own films and animations, the artist is re-incarnated in various works as a giant sculptural kite, a lifelike but genderless, non-binary simulation, and a guardian of the gates to ‘Luyang Hell’. In LuYang Delusional Mandala (2015) and LuYang Delusional Crime and Punishment (2016), her interest in deep brain stimulation is taken further through the invention of a halo-like device that results in crazed delusions. For Lu, these investigations into the mind and spirit, as well as our ability to visualize them, lie at the heart of identity in the twenty-first century.
The exhibition culminates in TMS Exorcism (2017), writhing to a soundtrack of post-trance core. As an artist whose playful irreverence and wicked humor constantly question norms of acceptability, this last gesture interrogates the cathartic role art and art institutions play within society. As the artist’s first exhibition at a non-profit institution in China, and the first solo show by a Chinese artist at M WOODS, Lu Yang’s exhibition brings together many of her best-known works while pointing to new directions within her practice.
