Yolanda Li
Fine Art PG Diploma
Michaelis School of Fine Art
Specialisms: Fine Art / Photography / Digital Arts
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Yolanda Li
First Name: Yolanda
Last Name: Li
Specialisms: Fine Art / Photography / Digital Arts
Sectors:
My Location: Cape Town, South Africa
University / College: Michaelis School of Fine Art
Course / Program Title: Fine Art PG Diploma
About
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and recently completed my BAFA at Michaelis School of Fine Art. My general interest and intrigue in the digital simulacra, finds expression in the form of immersive video art/video installation. My final year body of work, Blue sky green grass (2024), explores 'melancholy' and 'longing' as key emotions of our hyperreal contemporary. I am also interested in contemporary/digital sublime. Looking at the subliminal imageries used for packaging, advertising, screen savers and so on, I am fascinated by the kind of 'future' or 'dream' that is sold to us.
Bliss is a real image taken of a real place. It is also one of the most viewed photographs in the world since it was bought by Microsoft and used as a screensaver. It is in this procession of Bliss, from a blue-sky-green-grass landscape, to a photograph titled Bliss, to a branding symbol for Microsoft, to today's old-future aesthetic, that I wish to explore 'longing' and 'melancholia' as key emotions for our hyperreal contemporary. One would often compare seeing blue sky green grass to 'finding Window's home-screen'. In this way, Bliss the image, becomes the referent for blue sky green grass. Blue sky green grass with Bliss as origin becomes a portal to somewhere else, somewhere to be, somewhere to project our desires. As a result of reduplication or simulacrum, Bliss seems to always hold the past, the future, and the present in tension. In its eternal and blissful quality, it is simultaneously a nostalgic past, a utopia to come and a current longing. Bliss is an old dream but also an advertisement for where we must go and what we must desire. Through searching, constructing, and simulating Bliss or the most blue-sky-green-grass image, this body of work aims to capture a 'blue-sky-green-grass feeling'. A desirable feeling against the perplexity of postmodern experience but also a feeling that is ultimately melancholic. I desire blue sky green grass as it offers me an exit out of reality through its perfect, eternal, and simplistic qualities. However, I am melancholic in my desire as I realise Bliss is just another violent phantasm projected by our saturated or hyperreal systems. To escape reality, when reality and appearance (world of images) continually collapse into each other, means I find myself to prefer blue sky green grass on banners, in screens, as reproductions.
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