No One Can Sit in the Chair Forever没有人能永远坐在椅子上

No One Can Sit in the Chair Forever is based on publicly circulated online images of leaders, forums, and staged interviews. Using artificial intelligence, I remove the figures from these photographs, leaving behind only blurred traces of the spaces they once occupied. The clearly visible body disappears, while the chair, the stage, the backdrop, and the residual silhouette together form an image suspended between presence and absence.

In the original photographs, the figure is the unquestioned centre, serving to display status, authority, and public image. Once removed, the visual structure shifts. Empty chairs, disturbed space, and the traces that cannot be fully erased make the idea of “position” more visible than before. The chair ceases to function merely as furniture and becomes a symbol of office, power, speech, and public legitimacy.

The AI removal does not make the figure disappear completely. Blurred edges, residual forms, and incomplete voids suggest that power always leaves traces, and that technical erasure cannot fully eliminate what an image once recorded. Although the people are removed, the positions they occupied remain.

The work examines the relationship between power and visibility in public imagery, while also pointing to a broader condition: no one can occupy the same chair forever. Individuals leave, identities shift, and positions are replaced, while the stage, order, and modes of viewing built around power continue to operate. Through acts of deletion and retention, the work reflects on the temporariness of power and on how absence can make its structure newly visible.

《没有人能永远坐在椅子上》取材于网络上公开流通的领导合影、论坛现场和访谈照片。我使用人工智能将画面中的人物移除，只保留他们原本占据位置后留下的模糊影子。清晰的身体消失了，椅子、舞台、背景与残留的轮廓则共同构成一种介于在场与缺席之间的图像。

在这些原本用于展示身份、权力与公共形象的照片中，人物通常是绝对中心。去除人物之后，画面重心发生了变化：空着的椅子、被扰动过的空间和无法彻底抹去的痕迹，反而使“位置”本身变得更加明显。椅子不再只是家具，而成为一种象征——它代表职位、权力、发言权，以及被公众看见的资格。

AI的移除并没有真正让人物彻底消失。模糊的边缘、残余的形体和不完整的空白提醒我们，权力的存在总会留下痕迹，而技术性的删除也无法完全抹平图像曾经记录过的事实。人物虽被去除，他们曾经占据的位置却仍然在场。

作品关注公共图像中权力与可见性的关系，也指向一种更普遍的现实：没有人能够永远占据同一把椅子。具体的人会离开，身份会变动，位置会被替代，而围绕权力建立起来的舞台、秩序与观看方式却仍在持续运转。通过对这些图像的删除与保留，作品试图呈现权力的暂时性，以及缺席如何反过来使权力结构更加清晰。