Burn (2022)

Produced for the Worldbuilding and Wellbeing project.


Burn (2022)

Artist: Eason Tsang Ka Wai 曾家偉

6k video, audio soundtrack, 21’54”, courtesy of artist and Blindspot Gallery.


Eason Tsang’s Burn (2022) is a video capturing the close-up moment of bubbles bursting onto the water surface like fireworks. The artist developed the hobby of keeping pet fish over a harsh lockdown period during Covid. Watching the bubbles gush out of the air pump is not only a curative and meditative pastime, but the viewer also monitors the healthy supply of air bubbles, an assurance for the survival of the aquarium’s inhabitants. Stuck and confined in an interior like fish in a tank, the simple act of gazing at bubbles embodies functioning strategies of empathy and care.

Overlaying a background soundtrack with live recording of the bubbles, synthesizer chords, and delaying and self-oscillating aftereffects, the artist creates an ASMR sensorium via aslick water-screen with incredible duration and depth. As no active viewing is required, the artist invites viewers to click in, linger, and space out, together and alone with the ephemeral effervescence. After all, just as water bubbles are holograms that rise to being in the water surface, the display screen is the ultrathin surface that connects the virtual world and this one, you and me.


Go to the Worldbuilding and Wellbeing project page.