Lu Yang: The Act of Creating is a Spiritual Practice

Bright colours, exaggerated features, high-frequency music, whimsical dances, and absurd landscapes—Lu Yang’s work is striking in every sense. Plunged into his digital realm, we are invited to rethink our very existence. Lu Yang's artworks and performances are always characterised by an undercurrent of magnetic tension, revealing an entanglement between science and Buddhism, with the search for the ultimate answer predicated on this erasure of the boundaries between them. Here, Lu Yang shares how he gets inspiration from Buddhism and neuroscience.

Q: Why do you use your own likeness in your works and performances?

A: In Buddhism, there is a practice called white bone meditation, which is the visualisation of your own body or corpse. I applied this practice to my work, so that I am not only creating art but also practising spirituality. In fact, while creating my work, I am also dismantling and destroying my own body in order to analyse it from different angles. In doing so, it allows me to objectively recognise the body as a tool. 

‍

Q: Are the frequent references to the body, pain, and death in your work also influenced by Buddhist culture?

A: Yes. The Four Noble Truths in Buddhism are dukkha (suffering), samudāya (the origin of suffering), nirodha (the cessation of suffering), and magga (the path to the cessation of suffering). The first is suffering, which comes from our belief that everything is real. At the same time, death and suffering are relatively taboo subjects in our society, even though there is no need to avoid these subjects. What I do is  simply repackage these matters in a cool and flashy manner to draw people in, revealing issues that we must face as living beings. If you never present or discuss these topics, people won’t think about them, which is where I believe my work comes in. 

‍

Q: Why do you present seemingly opposing elements such as neuroscience and Buddhism together in your work? 

A: To break boundaries. Many questions cannot be explained or understood from a single point of view, yet humans are so keen on categorising and separating everything. However, when you explore a subject, you must break all boundaries. You can take these questions of neuroscience and explore them alongside religious ideas, because they provide different perspectives and conclusions. To think, you must first abandon all labels, or you will be forever trapped in a cage.