The Lighting

作品賞析

The Lighting is a video by artist Musquiqui Chihying. It consists of three narrative lines: first, it describes a mobile built-in app, very popular in Africa, that can make dark-skinned faces look whiter and brighter; then there are interviews with the engineers who helped developed this app by“correcting”the existing algorithm; then there is a discussion with a photographer on how to use“lighting”to compensate for the underexposure of dark skin tones in the lens. The video points out the impact that an automatic color correction system based on light skin color has on people with dark skin color. Musquiqui Chihying said that if you delve deeper into the English root of photography, you will find that photography actually means “painting with light.” Finally, he used a film that was the most popular in the 1970s but would underexpose dark-skinned people, and invited a black actor to play a martial arts master. Through showing his “Kung Fu” in front of the spotlight, he presents a kind of double-entendre of him“hitting” the lights.