Ai Deng

             






We will ask: 
‘What does all of this mean?' 
2024

We Will Ask “What Does All of This Mean?” is an experimental video work that centers on the human instinct to continually question meaning. Even when we recognize that certain actions may be meaningless, we remain compelled to assign value, oscillating between the pursuit of grand narratives and the emptiness of reality.



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Key frames






Exhibition



The film begins with a seemingly meaningless moment: staring at a wall. The body remains still while the mind drifts through blank space, where grand narratives briefly flash and dissolve, eventually collapsing into a single stain on the wall. In this process, the search for meaning appears both necessary and absurd.

In the end, the figure breathes through the cracks of the wall and returns to the real world. The work does not attempt to provide answers, but instead lingers at the moment when meaning falls apart, asking whether the act of questioning itself may be the only meaning we can reach.