The Central Union Railroad is a small construction camp located in western New Hanover. There, I encountered Chinese migrant workers who were building railroad for the first time. Later, in Saint Denis’ Chinatown, I encountered a Chinese man leaning against a wall. When I photographed him, he straightened up alertly and asked me in Cantonese, “Sir, what are you doing?”
The Central Union Railroad, New Hanover, and Saint Denis are fictional locations in the video game “Red Dead Redemption 2.” However, the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad between 1863 and 1869 and the participation of Chinese migrant workers are the history. Through a series of darkroom contact prints with digital negative transfer film made out of video game screenshots, Central Union Railroad & Saint Denis (2022-2024) experiments with the materiality of photography across the digital and the analog and examines contemporary racial representations and historical narratives in the video game industry. Today, the advancement of video game technologies, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, facial and voice recognition, and wearable device, are extending our sensory perception and transforming our knowledge of nature, history, and personhood. This work explores how the pieces of the real and virtual world interact, fit together or clash, generate complex unforeseen consequences, and reinforce cultural references.
This project also includes a series of short films. Although these films are made in the form of traditional ethnographic film with images and text, the collage of screening recordings, found footages of game streaming, and users’ comments questions the depiction of the racial and cultural otherness with sexual and racial violence.
Installation View
