If You Sent a Signal to the Plants at Home, Would They Respond?
Orignially Published on T China
In the lingering chill of early spring in Jiangnan, cherry blossoms were in full bloom along the roadside. Upon arriving at Tao’erchang in Yixing, UCCA Clay, designed by Kengo Kuma, appeared especially quiet under the dimming sky. But the moment one stepped into the exhibition space, a field that had seemed to belong to vision alone was disrupted by scent: artist Zhou Xiaohu had lit ambergris incense on site, and its aroma drifted through the air, laying another sensory filter over the exhibition, Hidden Within Matter.
Among the crowd, Zhang Yibei was easy to notice. Although her work Murmurs of Water and Warblings of Birds explores the complex entanglements of nature and technology, the artificial and the ecological, her own presence seemed to be turning increasingly inward.
Outside the museum stands one of her installation works: a “bionic tree” inspired by disguised cell towers. In reality, such structures emit frequencies inaudible to humans in order to prevent birds from nesting there, thereby maintaining the operation of human communication infrastructure. “This is actually a task carried out for humans,” Zhang Yibei said, “but at the same time, it is also a form of protection for birds.” She finds the capture and reception of such signals deeply fascinating. In an exhibition concerned with the interconnectedness of all things, we asked her: if she could send out a signal now, who would she send it to? “To the plants at home,” she said. “Just one question: how are you today?”
Within this vast social network, what matters to her is not the information itself, but the sense of movement that “sending” creates. It is like relationships between people: whether ecstasy or conflict, or even if something has paused for a while, once that flow has existed, the connection remains in life forever.
This sensitivity to “connection” and “perception” is also reflected in her preference for certain materials. Speaking of the materials used in her installation, she did not hide her fondness for aluminum. “The color and weight of aluminum give people a feeling that is both warm and austere.” Faced with today’s information environment, where oil and gold prices fluctuate with international tensions and war, and AI technologies iterate every few weeks, provoking a sense of crisis, maintaining an independent way of choosing what to take in may be a long practice of cultivation. Zhang Yibei’s answer is to step back. “I’ve realized that I don’t actually need to catch up with every piece of information immediately,” she said. “Instead, that makes me want even more to live in a state that feels comfortable in the present.”
The exhibition text is filled with terms like “agency” and “sympoietic networks,” but for Zhang Yibei, things are in fact very simple: “I hope people don’t interpret, but feel. To feel as if they were truly there.” Whether it is a gust of wind, an aluminum seed, or the bodily distance between people, if you stand here and feel it as if you were truly there, then you are already receiving her signal.
