Neon News

Series

2016-2021

Neon News Series are video stories written with different neon signage characters shot one by one in China. In Neon News, Li Qing tells stories in the form of short news, inspired by those we receive on our cellphones, often offering tantalizing topics and key information in a headline or a few words. He is interested in the rhythmic way the story is told, which the artist links to a sense of undercurrent city life. In metropoles where Chinese language is used—such as Shanghai, Hong Kong or Taipei—, the presence at night of glowing neon Chinese characters is a distinctive view. The work draws on the impressive number of characters and the variety of fonts used, revealing the way their forms appear. The experience of reading those signs differs from that of reading on a screen, cellphone or laptop which are today’s windows: nowadays, people are surrounded by screens and mainly connect with the world through them. Thus, if the city is further treated as a screen, each neon may then be considered a single word. The media environment of Chinese people is complex, one dominated by both official and folk discourse systems. Neon News videos leads us to imagine that the words we see when wandering around the city at night can be combined into a story, while at the same time becoming a finding and reading process.