Artwork Description:

Concerto: Not Being Socially Awkward is a participatory installation created by artist He Wei that probes the concept of social relationships. Taking human eating habits as its entry point, the work contemplates the shared social instinct and psychological experiences of individuals from different cultural backgrounds in the public sphere.

In this work, the towering and swaying rockers induce a sense of inconvenience and uncertainty within the audiences during their interaction with the artwork, simultaneously externalizing and magnifying one’s complex mental process when one confronts emotions such as embarrassment, expectation, and joy in a strange social setting. In addition, as a prop that visualizes intimacy, this artwork also acts as a kind of ice breaker between audiences in a humorous yet absurd approach. When the audiences socialize with the devices in their hands, they are also constantly adjusting their own body with one another’s personal space, jointly performing a “concerto” that resolves social awkwardness.

Courtesy of the artist