——FRAGEMENTS OF URBAN NAVIiGATION AND INTERRUPTED PERCEPTION
ZHIPU MIAO’S PORTFOLIO
zhipumiao@gmail.com
——FRAGEMENTS OF URBAN NAVIiGATION AND INTERRUPTED PERCEPTION
ZHIPU MIAO’S PORTFOLIO
zhipumiao@gmail.com
I made this series while moving through the city—on buses, inside shops, at service counters, and in the moments of waiting that quietly fill everyday life. These are spaces designed to move people efficiently, yet my experience of them rarely feels like movement. Instead, I often feel paused, redirected, or held in place. Waiting rooms, bus stops, checkout counters, queues, and corridors promise progress, but they frequently produce a strange sense of suspension. Time stretches in these places. Small delays accumulate and begin to shape how the day unfolds. Over time, I became aware that the way I look is constantly shaped by systems around me: rails guiding my body, signs directing my attention, screens returning my image back to me, and advertisements competing for my focus. Before I consciously decide where to look, something has already decided for me. My gaze is steered, interrupted, and redirected long before it feels like a personal choice.
In response, I began to fragment the images I was making. Instead of recording single, stable moments, I layered fragments of time and space together. I repeated figures, distorted architecture, folded surfaces, and allowed scenes to collapse into one another. Familiar environments began to feel unstable, as if they were slipping out of alignment with themselves. These visual interruptions mirror how perception feels in these environments—continuous, yet never fully stable. The city does not arrive as a sequence of clear events; it appears as overlapping signals, repeated encounters, and partial attention. Some images include text while others remain silent. Text appears only when language becomes unavoidable: a notice, a question, a moment of frustration, an instruction that demands to be read. In those moments, words interrupt vision just as forcefully as physical structures or surveillance. Elsewhere, the absence of text reflects a quieter kind of pressure, where repetition and visual noise speak on their own and language is no longer necessary.
Throughout the series, I am present but rarely centred. I move through spaces that promise efficiency, service, or arrival, yet these promises are constantly deferred. The journey home becomes less about distance and more about duration. The city does not unfold as a clear path, but as a maze of controlled routes, competing signals, and repeated distractions. The Way Home is not about reaching a destination. It is about the experience of remaining inside the system—moving, waiting, and looking—while never quite feeling that I have arrived.
The camera was copied layer by layer, like a production line aimed at the same scene. Symbols of ease, joy, and childhood were surrounded by harsh light, equipment, and repetitive cameras. Happiness was no longer spontaneous; it was precisely constructed, controlled, filmed, and packaged.
At that moment, I realized that the "everyday happiness" I usually saw might never have been everyday from the beginning. It was a pre-arranged angle, a chosen moment, an endlessly repeated image. When I looked at this ice cream truck, I didn't see a product, but an emotion being manufactured.
Glass, steel, reflections, and repetitive windows made it almost impossible to distinguish between space and image. The wait stretched on, and the city seemed to mirror itself endlessly. I stood there, watching the city repeat itself to me.
Body was disassembled, copied, and neatly arranged; red appeared repeatedly behind the glass, like a constant signal. They were no longer secrets, but an inescapable presence.
Standing on the street, I realized that this naked temptation brought neither ease nor pleasure, but rather a quiet pressure. The city placed desire in the brightest position, making it public, continuous, and omnipresent. Even if I was just passing by, I couldn't completely ignore it.
"Price increase" was originally just information, but suddenly it transformed into an atmosphere. The menus began to bend and float, as if reality were being gently folded. The space for everyday consumption became unstable, as if even the most ordinary decisions had begun to feel heavy. Life went on, but it had quietly become more expensive.
Colors are endlessly replicated, goods are endlessly arranged, and happiness is endlessly amplified. The recurring "M" is like a gentle yet constant urging: consume, choose, choose again. I stand in the middle, both attracted and overwhelmed. Happiness here is designed as an environment, and I am merely someone temporarily allowed to enter it.
The numbers on the screen are more important than my existence; they determine when I'll be seen, responded to, and processed. Waiting has become an institutionalized state, while emotions have no place to be numbered. Those fragmented words are like a self-talk endlessly looping in my mind—anxiety, helplessness, being ignored. The space appears calm, rational, and orderly on the surface, but my feelings are constantly delayed and interrupted. The service space promises efficiency, yet makes me realize I'm just a fragment in the process.
Buildings began to bend, replicate, and collapse; crowds appeared and disappeared endlessly, like time replaying the same moment on repeat. It seemed vibrant and entertaining, but I felt a profound sense of stagnation. The more bustling it was, the more it felt like standing still. The city promised movement, but what I experienced was a cycle.
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