Frankie Zhang Bixiao

On September 27 I spent a whole day in my apartment without electricity 

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I was woken up by loud music from my neighbours, it is quite an ironic beginning of my no-electricity day. I then realised that I have to go to the bathroom in the dark for the whole day since there is no window in my bathroom. For the first time I noticed the erosion on the bathroom door, something I never noticed before since I move in . The day started quite peacefully then I expected. I had some simple can food and started reading, it is interesting that I am reading about new media while having no electricity on. The music never stopped from next door almost like a reminder of impossibility to avoid the electrical. The long reading then let me fall asleep in the afternoon.  When I woke up again 

it is already close to down. Things are getting more inter-esting while my room gets darker and darker. It reminds me about when I was a kid, when the electricity breaks down in our home. The family almost becomes closer in the darkness every time, with first the awkwardness of looking for torches or candles 

and matches, but somehow easier to share intimacy.  

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I started this performance from the compulsive desire of pulling plugs from elec-tronics, especially when I am in public such as visiting galleries, I could not stop thinking, where are the plugs for this installation? It surprised me that this compulsiveness is actually not that common when I ask others. It does goes back to my my childhood memory again, where I watched a cartoon with a humanoid villain, that is defeated by pulling its plug that supplies its lifeline. Electronic, the Humanoid seems to be a metaphor of new media and technology altogether. While well constructed, with programs and algorithms, a mechanic ideal super human that is at the same time very fragile, electric plug is like the Achilles ankle of human technology. I guess the compulsion of mine have something to do with desire to defeat technology  to break its orders a little bit, at the end of the day isn't public spaces such gallery set-up also supported by an electrical order? Electricity is so fundamental now not only it is life stream for technology but also the live stream of human. 

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While I can peek through my window to see other tenants in buildings around where I live, just like the Hitchcock film "Rear Window". I can see everything going on with my neighbour that are strangers to me, especially when I am in the dark now I can took the advantage of hiding in it. Since I cannot read at night, for the first time I spent some time actually observing my neighbours for a while. There are four apartments with lights on, the lights actually helps my room not being completely in the dark, it seems to me the task of avoiding electricity is almost impossible. Unfortunately nothing thrilling ihas happened with my version of "Rear Window". All I can see are different strangers,coincidentally being all boys, sitting in front of their computer, almost all of them playing some sort of video games,They hardly move out of their positions for the night, as nothing else happens.