yidanchen928@gmail.com
The title 玩物致知 comes from the idea that objects can lead to understanding, though in this work the understanding remains incomplete.
The piece began after I had a dream about a deceased family member—a dream so geographically accurate that waking up felt like stepping out of the same room, just without the person in it.
The precision unsettled me. I wanted to keep some part of the experience, even though I knew that dreams do not survive translation.
I collected a few objects linked to the memory and 3D-scanned them, trying to anchor the dream to something physical. The scans were then arranged into a simple PPT presentation.
It’s an ordinary format, almost corporate, which made the whole attempt feel like I was documenting something that refused to be documented.
The models are faithful in shape but empty in atmosphere. They capture surfaces but not warmth, positions but not presence.
The work sits in that gap: a record that is technically accurate and emotionally insufficient, mirroring how the dream was both real and unreachable at the same time.
yidanchen928@gmail.com
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