Hi, my name is Yue Cheng. I’m a photographer from China. I have worked and studied in France for 3 years, in order to polish my professional photographic skills. Now I’m a master student at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie Arles. My photographs focus on the social phenomena brought by the mechanism of consumption including seduction, alienation, et cetera. Driven by these concerns, I began to look for representative places (like a parallel world, or a massive artificial playground) to photograph.
Mirage
Timeless and immutable spaces, which know neither day nor night, the casinos of the city of Macao / Monaco are surrounded by shops, cinemas, hotels, restaurants …
The mechanism of consumption in these districts, these spaces transpires its own ideology down to its smallest corners: fountains, colonnades of artificial trees, unalterable ambient temperature and always the same soundtrack which no visitor can hide. A gigantic playground , isolated from the world, it’s brilliant and dazzling and not only makes you dizzy, but also deeply shocked to people, from whom we would have subtracted the pangs and suffering inherent in human existence, a utopia, which only are entitled to explore. those who can pay entry.
Once inside, no more need for money, the tokens and credits that one uses to play at the casino became a real currency of exchange, by which one can access all the conveniences, leisures and goods imaginable. Paradoxically, after creating their realization in which people dramatically fill with a strange feeling. If you look at this space with a moral, aesthetic or critical color, you will erase its specificity.
To view more of Yue CHENG’s work please visit their website.