"Common tense" was once used to describe a form in literary works where the ontological status of the story is ambiguous. The dynamics of past, present, and future hover between fact and fiction. The details of the narrated characters, the landscapes traversed, and the conversations along the way are constructed in multi-layered and multi-dimensional ways. Readers occasionally encounter subtle clues, and the text before them possesses a texture akin to heading toward the same destination.
If "synchronicity" is viewed as what Jung emphasized as "external events corresponding to the observer's state of mind," in viewing the work Parallel Lines in the Subconscious (Li Xuemeng, 2021), the creative path and the imitation of the past are not merely explorations of form or expressions of personal ideas. Instead, they are internalized experiences related to psychology and memory—an interdependent relationship exists between objective events themselves and between them and the observer's subjective psychological state. At the same time, Untitled (print, Shuai Chenxi, 2020–2021) presents the "present" perceived by individuals as a continuous form. The moment of viewing is not merely a single point on the timeline.
Literary styles such as "unstable ontology" evoke free associations, deliberately loose, mysterious, and anti-static structures that emphasize the present moment[1]. Within such structures, the "real" neither avoids memory nor the temporality of objects. In the series When I Am Within (Zhou Zichen, 2020–2021), the scenes before the eyes resemble a temporal landscape. The process and experience of creation flow like a closed loop in time, focusing more on interpersonal self-perception rather than the artist's unilateral narrative.
When the intention enters the center of the frame, overlapping timelines transform space into a field for the artist to express personal consciousness. In the work Sleeping (Hariri, 2021), the subjective aspect of reality is incorporated. The artist's personal experiences and familiar daily life unfold in the process, articulating his world through creative authenticity, while the mutability of facts also becomes apparent.
In photosensitive emulsion coating, the negative becomes a sketch of light, akin to what Sontag metaphorically described as "a trace," "an imprint of reality[2]." Between contrasting works, there are no clear boundaries between the flat colors of the planes or the pieces created with different media in space. The light between the two walls may also serve as a form of communication.
