Akeroyd Collection
Works
Samson Young, The highway is like a lion's mouth (馬路如虎口), 2018
![a still image of the video The highway is like a lion's mouth. A figure is wresting a series of blurred objects free floating on a black background. The image is a digital animation](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F82f3e48733df2163cf7d21c44deb731c430c54b6-1920x1080.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![a still image of the video The highway is like a lion's mouth. Pink text that says mobile off seat belt ON float above a figure wearing a balaclava. The background is composed of green shapes. The image is a digital animation](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F2798364e80e5557f2630a5858978d146104c58ef-1920x1080.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![a still image of the video The highway is like a lion's mouth. 3 shirtless figures stand in a digitally rendered space. The back ground is blue and it seems as though they are standing on some sort of race track perhaps](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2Fe8ccfebf067783a9ff824af12cf7221456ccc417-2870x1615.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![An installation view of Installation view, Samson Young, The highway is like a lion's mouth, 6 November - 23 December 2018, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Shanghai. We see a blue wall with a door way. We can see the back side of a giant yellow lion. People need to walk under the lion to enter the room behind](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F5841ad4751ab7ce8e9d41e083e304ba1f7dae7da-1920x1280.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![Installation view of Installation view, Samson Young, The highway is like a lion's mouth, 6 November - 23 December 2018, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Shanghai. A tv screen with a still of the video is hanging on a white wall. There are 2 freestanding speakers either side. The floor is carpeted in purple carpet and there are yellow objects scattered across the floor. It is difficult to discern what these objects are.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2Ff977fcc799dadc5849ed1d3cfd154b4f99c5f0ac-1920x1280.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
The highway is like a lion’s mouth is the approximate English translation of a familiar Hong Kong road safety slogan. Originating in a 1990s government-sponsored jingle, it educated children about the dangers of crossing the road. Using this as the work’s title, Samson Young ostensibly creates an updated but unlikely jingle that plays out as a digital surrealist music video. A plethora of visual tropes are deployed in mixed media and digital renderings; We see imagined television station idents, software interfaces, exploded diagrammatic drawings of cars, visual depictions of experience indexing and mapping, and avatars dancing and moving through digitally rendered environments. We see 3D-rendered roads colliding with printed imagery of street scenes which then dissolve into pov driving simulators, computer game aesthetics and corporate slogans. The music is ineffective as a jingle, distinctly un-catchy it draws on experimental electronica, Avant guard composition, minimal techno and musique concrete rather than memorable musical phrases and simplistic, repetitive structure. At odds with its supposed function to ingrain a safety instruction in the minds of viewers, the film instead questions how governments use mass media and advertising campaigns to regulate existing social norms or instigate new ones.
Medium | 4K single-channel video |
Duration | 10 minutes 53 seconds |
Edition | of 3 + 1 AP |