Don’t Have a Good Day, Have a Great Day
An undefined covariable, Artsect Gallery, London, Janury, 2024, Curated by Jin & C3 & Mandy Wang
In this live performance, the artist interacts with the audience through a screen positioned in the corner of the gallery, while an anthropomorphic installation—a robotic arm mounted on motorised wheels—moves through the space on his behalf. The device shakes hands, exchanges pleasantries, and performs ritualised gestures of self-introduction, enacting the social behaviours typical of exhibition openings.
By delegating presence and interaction to this mechanical surrogate, the work transforms absence into an operational condition. The artist’s body becomes a set of mediated functions—signal, interface, movement—controlled remotely, while the audience engages with both the screen and the installation. Titled Don’t Have a Good Day, Have a Great Day, the piece draws on the scripted greeting of the virtual character Guy (Free Guy) to highlight how sociality in the art world is already structured by protocols of visibility, efficiency, and exchange.
Through this setup, the work stages a paradoxical form of presence: the artist is physically near, yet functionally absent; interactions unfold, yet are mediated; sociability is performed, yet replaceable. It is a live enactment, a critique, and a technological proxy all at once.
在这件现场行为作品中,艺术家通过画廊角落的一块屏幕与观众互动,同时一套拟人化装置——安装在可移动轮子上的机械臂——在空间中代替他行动。装置与观众握手、寒暄,并完成程式化的自我介绍,呈现展览开幕式中典型的社交行为。
通过将在场与互动委托给这一机械替身,作品将缺席转化为一种可被操作的条件。艺术家的身体被拆解为一组媒介功能——信号、接口、动作——远程控制,而观众同时面对屏幕与装置进行互动。作品标题 《Don’t Have a Good Day, Have a Great Day》 取自电影《失控玩家》(Free Guy)中虚拟角色的默认问候语,指出艺术行业中的社交早已被可见性、效率与交换逻辑所结构化。
通过这种安排,作品呈现出一种悖论性的在场状态:艺术家物理上近在咫尺,却功能上缺席;互动发生,却被媒介中介;社交被表演,却可被替代。它既是一场现场行为,也是一种批判,更是一种技术替身的实践。
Title
Don’t Have a Good Day, Have a Great Day
Year
2024
Materials
Digital/Live performance (Installation Interaction) , Iron, zinc screws, acrylic, iron pipe, Arduino development board, iphone, six-axis robotic arm, remote control car, ipad, microphone stand, lamps, etc.
Dimensions
Dimensions Variable
Exhibitions
An undefined covariable, Artsect Gallery, London, UK, 2023