Moses led the people of Israel to the Promised Land. In the midst of doubt and fear, he split the Red Sea in two in the name of faith and divine power. The work treats this miracle as a recurring meta-narrative about belief, proof, and collective expectation.
If Big Tech has become a new religion, the promised brighter future also asks for its own images, relics, and demonstrations. The installation and video place fake news, fictional stories, virtual worlds, and real news photographs inside the same commemorative logic, blurring the boundary between evidence and fiction.
Process notes
The information sheet frames the work through the Exodus story: Moses splitting the Red Sea becomes a reusable narrative structure about doubt, belief, authority and promised futures. The work turns that structure toward contemporary technology, asking whether Big Tech has inherited a religious authority, and whether the future it promises can actually be reached.
The new stills extend the installation dossier into the internal grammar of the video: the Promise interface turns belief into a platform ritual; the line “Can we be responsible” appears beside a chariot wheel and a broken web page; the underwater crossing and biblical subtitle return the miracle to a visual proof; and the Moses gesture and Greenhouse map translate promised land into a navigable, monetized system.
Festivals / screenings
- 2023, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing, China
- 2023, dokumentART, Neubrandenburg, Germany
- 2023, KUANDU Film Festival, Taipei, Taiwan
Exhibitions
- 2026, I lie in the earth, my lips still stirring., East Gallery, Nanjing, China
- 2024, Interlaced Revenant, Huoshui-art, Beijing and Chongqing, China
- 2023, Katabasis, Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival, Xiamen, China
- 2022, Thinking Through Ocean, Topred Centre for Contemporary Art, Xiamen, China
Links / references
- BISFF official selection: How to Split the Sea in Two Official Beijing International Short Film Festival work page.
- Guangli Liu homepage archive: Thinking Through Ocean / 海洋学 Homepage section with installation views and video captions from Thinking Through Ocean.
- Guangli Liu official page: How to Split the Sea in Two Artist official page with stills, process notes, exhibition records and screening-room access.